


Rushing Waters

by Mystrana



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: (if you count sharing a blanket on the dirt floor of a lean to bedsharing), Anal Sex, Bedsharing, Blow Jobs, Bottom!Bucky, Elf!Bucky, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, Whump, background clint/natasha - Freeform, background sam/scott, dash of mutual pining, direwolves, elemental magic system, explicit last chapter, fantasy!au, in that Bucky considers all humans his enemy, like glacial slow burn, look this fic has it all, marsh hogs, technically a bit of enemies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-03 18:42:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16331459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystrana/pseuds/Mystrana
Summary: Steve’s only known his life as a blacksmith apprentice in his small riverside town. But some people still speak stories of the times when fairies and elves lived among his people and the river ran wide through the middle of the forest, so far across you couldn’t see the other side. Now the river is a little trickle of a thing that barely accommodates small trade ships.As one of the remaining high elves, Bucky's spent a lot of time studying history. It’s not like the old days, when their numbers spread out through the forest and down to the islands of the south, and they had a Kingdom to run. These days, the elders just sit around and quarrel about the best way to avoid humans and, given his luck, Bucky’ll be in one of those seats in a scant hundred years or so.When a devastating natural disaster threatens everything they both know, Steve quickly learns that the old stories might be more important than he could ever imagine, and Bucky learns that the humans might not be the enemies he thought they were. In fact, they might realize that together, they’re capable of more than anyone could have dreamed of.





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well hey there! Welcome to my CapBB2018 Submission! This little tale has been keeping me busy, so I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> A few thanks are in order, of course.
> 
> First, to [KazablanKa](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/), whose amazing artwork will be featured in upcoming chapters! Thank you so much for supporting me through the ups and downs of this fic and for capturing my characters so perfectly. It really meant a lot to me when you told me how much the chapter 10 scene you drew resonated with you, really made me confident that maybe I _was_ getting the story across that I wanted to tell! Thank you!
> 
> And second, to [Agentcoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/pseuds/AgentCoop/works), my amazing beta who patiently held my hand as I freaked out about plot points and the slow, slow, slow burn of this fic, and prevented me from writing the same word six times in as many paragraphs.
> 
> This fic will update daily until 10/29! :)

**Prologue**

 

“Don’t get lost in a puddle!” Natasha laughed and waved to Clint as she flew up towards a low branch, her iridescent wings glimmering as light filtered through the trees.

Clint looped in the air behind her. “I’m faster than any old marsh hog, don’t you worry!”

“And the humans?” Natasha peeked out at him from behind a leaf, her red hair sparkling where the sun hit it, her body incandescent. “You can move faster than them too?”

Clint mumbled something that Natasha couldn’t hear. She focused on the leaf. It was twice her size, without holes or tears. It would be perfect for the village.

“Come on and give me a hand. This one is just what I needed.”

Together, they pulled at the stem until the leaf came free, and they brought it down to the village, a network of rooms carved into the sturdy mushrooms around the bases of several huge trees and covered with leaves. Everyone was abuzz with activity - the water carriers had returned home and everyone had to help prepare for the celebration that evening.

Clint helped her settle the leaf onto the pile in the clearing between the trees that made their town center. Other fairies worked to pass them out so that fairies could replace the roofs or fix the sides of their rooms. Nearby, a second pile of dry, crumbling leaves would be used to make the fire. Natasha looked on with pride as her leaf was selected to go on the roof of the Ancient One’s room.

“I can’t wait for tonight,” she confided to Clint as they flew out once again, looking for another leaf. “It just feels right to be able to celebrate the water carriers before we pass through the flames.”

“Thirty years of being a child and we finally can be considered for adult jobs? Yeah, I’m thrilled too, Nat.” Clint wiped away a drop of dew that had fallen on his blonde hair. “I’ll be glad to leave behind leaf duty.”

“Everyone puts in their time, Clint. Even the Ancient One, some hundred years ago.”

“Can you imagine that old guy without wrinkles?” Clint grinned. “I think he was born eighty years old.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon gathering leaves and bringing them back to the village, careful to listen for marsh hogs and the rare, though occasional, human. Humans typically didn’t come out this far in the forest, not this far from the river. Humans liked to be right up against their streams, which meant the fairies had to stay away and find other ways to get the water they needed. 

Still, humans explored every once in a great while, so best to spread the water barrels around.

They passed by the first water barrel hidden under an oak leaf, and Clint tutted. “How did we get so far already?”

Every fairy old enough to fly knew not to travel farther than the first water barrel, lest they find an errant - and hungry - marsh hog rooting about. 

“Let’s grab this leaf and head back.” Natasha pointed to a gorgeous oak with huge, fanning leaves just a little ways ahead. 

As they flew to the side of the tree, Clint looked around. He paused, tilting his head and scrunching his eyes closed for a moment. “Do you hear that, Nat?”

Natasha held still in the air a moment, listening. “Maybe? It sounds like something moving way up to the north. Let’s go quick. I’m not in the mood for a chase.”

“That’s not the Nat I know.” Clint grinned, heading to the leaf. 

“I know.” She paused, listening for another moment before flying up the last bit to help him pull it out by the stem. “It just sounds off, whatever’s going on up there. I don’t know what it is. And it sounds like it might be heading our way. Tonight’s not the night to be late.”

Clint nodded. They headed back to the village.

 

*

 

As the setting sun filtered through the leaves and the clearing darkened, everyone gathered in the middle of the village where the giant fire threw shadows on the mushrooms. Tables made of bark were set up on one side, filled with berries, seeds, nuts - there was even a roasted squirrel, courtesy of a hunting expedition.

Clint and Natasha sat in the front, just a few paces from the flames. A few other fairies sat with them, ready to pass through the flames with them. Next to the fire stood the Ancient One, looking at the group. His face was implacable, but the corners of his mouth held deep laugh lines, and on a less formal day, he might have even been smiling fondly at them.

Today was not most days.

“Our water gatherers have returned!” His voice was deep and, despite his appearance, loud. A cheer went up across the whole crowd. Fairies in the back played music, acorn drums and grass stem pipes. The fire loomed large beside him, and Natasha leaned towards Clint, lacing her fingers through his.

Each water carrier came to the front and was honored with a brilliant purple blackberry, freshly picked and presented to them by a tiny, ten year old child who had just learned to fly. One last blackberry was placed on the ground next to them, and Natasha’s blood ran cold. She didn’t know everyone in the current group of carriers and wasn’t sure who they had lost. When had she lost track? Everyone knew the water carriers. They provided life for the village.

“A moment of silence for Aubrey,” the Ancient One said, and they all bowed their heads. When the moment of silence was over, they sang her name to the sky.

As that note faded, Natasha swore she heard the same sound they had heard by the northern water barrel. She poked Clint as discreetly as she could while sitting in front of the group. “Do you hear it?” she asked as loudly as she dare. Clint’s hearing wasn’t as good as hers. He might not hear it yet with all of the noise around them and the crackling of the fire. 

“Tonight we also celebrate life.” The Ancient One raising his arm and gestured to the fire. “Five of our young ones will be blessed by the flame and pass into adulthood. Darcy, come forward.”

Darcy, short even by fairy standards, stepped forward, her wings buzzing nervously behind her. She squared her shoulders and stood with her spine stock-straight.

“Fly and pass through the flames.”

She paused for only a moment before taking to the air and gliding through the top of the flames. The fire grew for a split second, enveloping her completely. Natasha felt Clint flinch minutely beside her. Everyone said it didn’t hurt, but ... it looked like it would hurt.

Darcy stood on the other side of the flame, appearing untouched by the fire, even though they had all seen her fly through it.

The Ancient One nodded. “So it has been seen in the flame and so it shall be. Darcy, you will continue your work with the scholars.”

Darcy smiled at that, glancing out into the crowd. Natasha knew Darcy had been studying under Jane. They had been a good team so far. Darcy accepted her blueberry and returned to the group.

“Clint, come forward.”

Clint stared at the flame as he stood and walked to the front of it. The Ancient One prompted him, and he flew through. The fire swelled up once again, taking him in and then letting him go all in an instant. Natasha watched his face, looking for signs of pain, but when the fire came up on him, it was impossible to see. When the licks of flame retreated, he seemed amazed. He smiled.

“So it has been seen and so it shall be. Clint, the hunters will be glad to have you join their lodge.”

The crowd cheered and at least one fairy whooped. It was no secret that Clint was already well-trained on the bow and arrow. Natasha smiled, her heart full of pride. Clint would enjoy the work as a full-grown hunter. He took his blueberry and returned to sit next to her, squeezing her hand once.

“Natasha, come forward.”

Natasha stood. The noise began to ring in her ears. Surely someone else had to hear it, right? She looked from face to face in the crowd, but everyone seemed focused on the flame. Everyone seemed focused on her, because she was in front of it, and she was supposed to be flying through.

Had the Ancient One spoken the words already? Natasha looked at him and he looked back with an encouraging nod. She wasn’t afraid, so she lifted off the ground a few inches and took a breath. The flames, already scorching hot a foot away from the fire, surrounded her, growing impossibly huge around her, dancing down her wings and licking up her legs, singeing her skin. She choked back a scream and for a moment that felt like an eternity, she burned.

And then she was on the other side of the flame, and she was without injury. The noise was louder than ever, a roaring, rushing sort of sound and she shuddered, suddenly horribly cold.

“- shall be honored to have you join the ranks of the water-carriers -” The Ancient One was saying something, the crowd was cheering, but Natasha couldn’t quite hear it. She met Clint’s eyes, and saw the stricken look on his face.    
  
She followed his gaze to the north and saw that her new job as a water carrier was about to become laughingly obsolete.

Water rushed between the trees, streaming through the north end of their village and destroying everything in its path.  
  


 

 

#  1

Steve’s boots squelched with every step. A week ago, it would have been funny. Who ever heard of someone having their feet wet for so long? Who ever heard of someone not being able to dry out their socks and boots?

He grimaced at the sound and plunged his hand into the muddy water, hoping to find something of use. By his best guess, they had to be on the outskirts of Odinstown, the major port settlement. His blacksmith master had called Odinstown the closest they’d ever get to a city.  _ In the old times _ , he’d say,  _ cities were giant settlements where hundreds of people lived in castles _ .

Odinstown probably housed a hundred people on a busy trade day.

Steve looked out to the horizon. If it weren’t for the sudden lack of trees in the very middle of the floodwaters, Steve wouldn’t have known where the original banks of the river stood. The very tops of some of the two story buildings were still visible. There, with the sloped-roof intake building, must have been where the docks used to be. It was just noticeable in the distance. 

Definitely Odinstown, then. Closer to where Steve stood, the wooden buildings - a few houses, and maybe that was the store back a little farther - were only half-flooded, the water lapping up against window panes. 

“Might as well be completely under water for all the good it’s doing me,” he grumbled to himself. He came up empty-handed and shuffled down stream a little, trying to figure where the water might have carried food and other items when the flood came through.

“You know,” called Sam from some ten feet back, using his hand to shade his eyes from the sun, “I think talking to yourself is a sign of insanity.”

“The river flooding like this without a storm for days is a sign of insanity.” His boot thudded against something hard and he hunkered down to grab at it, coming up with a crate. It was sealed with nails but made of wood and the wood was soaked through. He hefted it out of the water and mud and squelched back to where Sam sat on the bank.

Last week that had probably just been a hill in a clearing in the forest. Everything still looked so odd, with trees poking out of the water here and there, trunks submerged and roots hidden. He had wondered how long the trees could survive like that, half underwater.

Sam helped him pry the waterlogged wood off the top of the crate and they looked inside.

“Weapons.” Sam sighed. He fingered the inlain gems on the handles. “Beautiful, but what are six daggers going to do for us when there’s no place to exchange them for gold?”

“Or food. I would exchange a single one of those for just a loaf of bread.” Steve closed his eyes for just a moment, just a second to pretend that when he opened them, the water would be gone and he could get back to the life he had been living last week. 

He could still hear the water rushing happily along the new riverbed.

“Do you believe what they’ve been saying?” Sam asked. 

Steve knew the conversation was a distraction, but it was a welcome one as he squelched back into the river, ankle deep and then knee deep and then up to his thighs. He would have gone barefoot, but going barefoot was how Scott had stubbed his foot up against a crate of food and done some serious, but thankfully manageable, damage.

“That the gods flooded the river to punish us?” Steve considered his answer. Step, squelch. Step. “I guess it’s as good an answer as any.” The waters had come in the evenings. People had been settling in their houses to sleep, but many had been awake and some spectacular rescue efforts had been coordinated. “I guess it’s a punishment in two parts. Try not to drown. And then try not to starve.”

He felt down in the waters, and came up empty handed. “Blood and damnation. I guess I’ll start trying the buildings.”

“It’s time for us to switch, anyhow.” Sam patted the grassy hill. “Come dry out for a bit and I’ll check the first house.”

Steve squelched out of the water, tossing a glance back at the building behind him. Buildings were hit or miss. Either you could get in to the place and find something useful, or the walls were starting to fall apart thanks to a week’s worth of water damage. 

They had lost three people to that disaster.

Steve took off his boots and socks and hung them on a tree branch. When he sat down, he couldn’t help but wriggle his toes in the grass. The breeze wafted by, a tease of what it was like to be dry.

After a minute, he called to Sam. “How offended are you going to be if I strip down to my underwear? My pants are soaked.”

“I won’t tell Scott I looked.” Sam did even turn around. He was testing the walls of a building, checking to make sure they didn’t feel on the verge of collapse and ready to splash back in the water if anything started to creak too loudly. “And pants or not, I still expect you to dive in and save me if things go badly here.”

“You’ve got my word, Sam.” Steve stretched out on the grass, letting the sun dry his skin and the wind air out his clothes. He looked to the west.  _ The forest probably doesn’t go much farther than where we’re at. I wonder if the desolated lands have been flooded too. _

No one had bothered to send an expedition — the priority was food and shelter. A marsh hog might not do too much damage to an adult, but the children were at risk, and everyone needed to eat. Steve forced himself to remember that it could be worse. It was still but spring, and if they found suitable grounds — and seeds — they could plant. They could have some semblance of a harvest. The flood had most likely destroyed every small town along the river, but the survivors could band together. 

They could restart. 

The warm sun and the soft breeze had Steve closing his eyes to steal a blessed moment of respite from the near-constant anxiety that had washed over him with the flood. They were always there; the worries of where to relocate to, how to begin again with nearly everything gone. 

Peggy had told him stories, all from before her time too, of when their people had abandoned the old castles and moved to the small river to start settlements. Steve daydreamed about what a castle would have looked like and how many people would be able to live in one place.

“Oh, this is it!” Sam’s words were muffled by the building, but the enthusiasm in his voice had Steve rolling over and sitting up. He grabbed his clothing off of the tree, bringing down a few leaves in the process. “I know you just took your pants off, but you gotta get back in here and help me out.”

Steve pulled on his still damp pants, the fabric catching against his legs as he tugged. His socks had only just began to dry and his boots went right back to squelching, but the promise in Sam’s voice helped him splash through the water without paying too much attention to how damn  _ wet _ it was. 

He didn’t notice one of the little leaves floating in the air on no wind, moving seemingly on its own until it was out of sight.

Steve poked his head in the door frame and glanced around the house, a typical one room construction. There were some swollen wood beds floating in the corner with a tattered blanket bobbing about. The other wall had a fireplace and an open cupboard. A kettle floated by upside down. Steve looked up and saw Sam up on a loft, gesturing to everything on the level.

“Finally, someone who had enough foresight to predict this unpredictable flood and put their seeds on a shelf!” Sam was like a child on their birthday, and the elation was infectious. 

Steve smiled, putting a hand on the ladder below Sam and testing its strength. The wood was wet but not waterlogged like the other furniture.

“You’ll forgive the rest of us for expecting the water levels to rise maybe a foot in the spring and not fifty.”

Sam shook his head. “And look where that got us! But this? This is great. The ladder was hooked up with some rope, so I could pull it down! This is the first time it’s gotten wet. We don’t even have to worry about it collapsing on us. The rest of the house, though...” He looked over the loft again, taking inventory. “We should probably get someone to help us, don’t you think?”

Steve glanced out a half-submerged window, trying to get a feel for the sun’s position. It was weird to be in a house and up to his crotch in water at the same time. “You found it, so you stay dry. Well. Drier. Pass the things down to me and I can bring them to the bank. It’ll take just as long or longer to go grab someone else to help.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Sam scooted to the edge of the shelf and leaned down, handing Steve a box. “Scott will want to come and I don’t want to make him feel like he can’t help because of his foot. Let’s do this.”

They worked in companionable silence for the next hour or so, Steve sloshing through the water and Sam gathering the blessedly dry supplies. When they were finished, Steve stripped out of his soaked through pants, socks and boots, his dignity protected by a pair of underwear.

Sam hesitated for a moment and did the same. He beamed as he looked at their haul. “This is exactly what we needed. I didn’t think we’d get this lucky.” His voice caught for a moment, but when he spoke again, his voice was steady. “But I guess maybe Thor or Odin up there heard our prayers.”

“It’s not going to be easy.” Steve didn’t want to take the light out of Sam’s eyes, but he had a hard time feeling optimistic when there was still so much work to be done. “Still, I agree. At least one of the gods doesn’t want us dead.” 

“It won’t be easy.” Sam looked at the supplies again, his original grin fading but still in the creases of his face. “It’s a start. A new beginning.”

 

*

 

The sun had almost set as Sam and Steve finished their hike, and several little cooking fires dotted throughout the clearing like fireflies drew them home.

Home was tents made from canvas strung up on ropes hung between trees and tiny wooden lean-tos built against the bases of a few giant trees. It was the people sitting around the fires on logs, trying to pretend that this was an adventure and not their new way of life.

“When are we going home, mama?” A little girl tugged at her mother’s dress. Her mother shushed her and waved her farther back from the fire. “I want to sleep in my bed, mama. I want my doll. She misses me.”

Steve smiled at the little girl as he and Sam came into the clearing with their haul. They had piled the items on a strong piece of canvas and carried it through the woods. Everyone stopped what they were doing when they saw the amount of things that they had brought back.

“Sam!” Leaning heavily on a thick branch as he hobbled over, Scott had a grin across both cheeks. “You came back.”

“Where was I gonna go?” Sam joked. He pulled Scott close, wrapping his arms around him and not moving for a moment. When he let go, he fussed at Scott to get back to sitting and putting his foot up, and went to get others to help put the supplies in a safe place.

“Did you find candy?” Some of the littlest children crowded around, trying to peek at the bundles and crates.

“Sorry, no candy!” Steve’s smile was teasing. “What we found is even better than candy!”

“Better than candy?” A little boy asked, his eyes wide.

A different voice spoke next, quieter in her old age than it once had been, but the words formed just as strongly. “Farming equipment. Seeds. Waters send me strength, you two have found life for us.” Peggy had made her slow way across the clearing and was standing with her tall walking stick. Her snow white hair was pulled back and tied with a piece of ribbon.

“Even a simple blacksmith’s apprentice can work a miracle on occasion.” Steve clasped Peggy’s free hand, her fingers so slight between his. “Though it isn’t much.” He glanced at the children, who still weren’t sure that seeds were as good as candy. “Hopefully all will go well.”

“We will light our prayers on the water, and the gods will hear us.”    
  
Steve wished he felt half as confident as Peggy sounded. 

Despite the lack of the candy, the kids were still in good spirits. Perhaps they were bolstered by Peggy’s optimistic smile. 

“Tell us a story, Peggy?” asked the little boy. His eyes were still wide. “Something so amazing like you always do!”

Peggy smiled, every line in her face a product of decades of those smiles. She made a show of looking out toward the sky, which was dark beyond the fires. “I think we have just enough time for one story before you all need to go off to bed. Come sit with me.”

She led them to one of the fires near the middle of the clearing. Some of the others had circled it with logs, and Peggy carefully sat down on one, Steve offering her a hand for balance. The children crowded around onto the surrounding logs, calling out for the stories they wanted to hear. Peggy knew all of the origin stories and most of the history of their people. 

Steve didn’t want to think about what would happen when she died, the wealth of knowledge they could have lost if the floods had claimed her with their other victims.

“Tell us about the elves, Peggy, please!”

Steve yawned as he sat down on a log across from the fire, watching and listening to a story he knew almost as well as she did. It always sounded better when she told it, and the kids always leaned in closer.

“Well as you all know,” Peggy began, and the kids nodded happily. “Long before my grandparents were alive, the elves and the fairies used to live among our relatives. In fact, they say that when you see a twinkle of dew under a leaf, it means a fairy has been through.” She smiled, and pretended to flick a speck of water off of an imaginary leaf. “This is a story from those times.

“In fact, just like you’re sitting here, there sat a little girl named Meera, and she was asking her mother about the elves. She said, ‘Mama, why are the elves here among us? What makes them so special?’ and her mother looked thoughtful and said, ‘It’s just the way things are, Meera. They’re no more special than you or I.’ 

“Meera was a smart little girl and she didn’t care for that answer. So she went out and found her friend Rune, a little elf who lived in the same village. ‘Rune, why are your people here among us? What makes you so special?’ Well, Rune shrugged and smiled and said, ‘My parents moved here before I was born. I suppose we could ask them!’

“It sounded like the perfect solution, so Meera agreed and they ran across the dusty village square to Rune’s little house. His mother was outside, hanging some laundry in the bright sun. ‘Mother,’ Rune asked, ‘Why do we live here among the humans? Should we be somewhere else?’

One of the older girls by Peggy interrupted the story. “Why was it so dusty, anyhow? Did people live far away from the river back then?”

Peggy smiled. “Back during this story, the river was so much bigger than we knew it. People could live farther away because it was so easy to dig a little ditch and bring some water through it. Farmers had great, huge fields as far as you could see.”

“But… what happened to the river? Why was it smaller?” 

“No one quite knows.” Peggy leaned forward, the flames etching into lines worn on her skin and flickering on her eyes. “Many years ago, when the elves disappeared, the river dried up. Those were trying times for our ancestors. Without the river, they could not support their beautiful cities.” She bowed her head. “Many were lost, and those that remained moved closer to the river, setting up the towns we’ve all known.” 

_ Until now. _ Steve saw the shimmer of sadness in Peggy’s eyes, but she blinked a few times, and managed a smile for the children.

“So what did Rune’s mama say?” asked the little boy who had hoped for candy.

“Well. Rune’s mother was silent for a minute while she hung the laundry, and Meera and Rune waited. Meera knew it had to be an important reason. But his mother simply said, ‘When Odin created the forest, He created  _ all _ of us. Do you question why a bird flies through the branches or why a marsh hog charges a wayward traveler? We are here because we are supposed to be.’ 

“But Meera grew up and hated Rune, didn’t she?” asked another child, and a third nodded, remembering the part that came next.

“Well, there’s a few stories before that, but yes. When Meera grew up, she and Rune had a terrible fight. They hurt each other badly, and their blood stained the leaves, turning them red and orange, before they fell off of the trees. That was how we got the changing of the seasons.” 

The children clamored with other, sleepy questions, but their parents were calling out from campfires that were dying down, working to get everyone settled under blankets and on what pillows they had managed to save. The handful of cows and chickens that had been saved had quieted down in their makeshift pens. 

Peggy shooed the kids off to their lean-tos and shelters, until she and Steve were sitting alone, together.

“How much of it do you believe?” Steve asked her as he stretched his arms. “The elves? Fairies? The river?”

Peggy stared into the flames as if they held the answer. She didn’t answer for a minute, but Steve didn’t mind waiting. He stretched his legs out, his feet finally dry. 

“I believe there’s some truth in every story.”

Steve glanced at the fire, wondering if it did hold the answer. He didn’t see anything except smoke and ash. “So why’d the river dry up, then? Did the elves do something to it when they left?”

“The story of Meera and Rune’s children tell us that the elves went north as they disappeared, but that’s about all that’s said on it.”

“North, hm?” Steve stared out towards the dark, shapeless masses of the trees. “D’you think they did something to the river?”

“Are you a blacksmith or a scholar?” Peggy asked with a gentle smile.

“I suppose right now, I’m whoever I have to be.” Steve stretched again, enjoying the heat on his legs and chest. “But I am worried. If the river flooded like this now, it could happen again. I’m thinking about going north, Peggy. Following the flood.”

Peggy laughed. “And what will you find in the north?”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I hope to find nothing. But if we’re going to try to make it work here, I just feel like I have to make sure there’s no truth in your stories.” Steve sighed before he continued. “That the flood isn’t some malicious act, and that there’s not some, I don’t know, army of elves about to march on us and attack or something. Does that make sense?”

Peggy’s smile was warm. “Your imagination is as active as any of the children.” 

But she didn’t say that he was out of his mind, and she didn’t tell him no. A while later, when Steve went to lie down on his blanket spread out on the dirt of his tiny lean-to, his mind ran in circles. The stars above him twinkled through the unevenly placed branches. They seemed to wink down at him as he wondered how much of the world he knew nothing about.

 

*

 

“You ought to wait until we can come with you.” Scott wrinkled his forehead as he watched Steve packing his bag.

There wasn’t much to shove in the worn leather bag besides his blanket and, if he was being honest, a lot less food than he’d like to have with him. Steve watched some of the children running around in the morning dew. He couldn’t take food away from them. He’d have to hope he could forage for something and maybe catch a fish or two in the swollen river. 

“There’s no sense in risking anyone else.” Steve’s tone didn’t leave much room for argument, but that had never stopped Sam or Scott before. “We’ve got no one to spare.”

“Odin save us from caring about you,” Sam replied, raising an eyebrow. “What good does this do if you die alone in the forest?”

Steve shrugged, an easy motion that didn’t betray the nervousness that danced under his skin. “It’s a more acceptable loss than risking multiple lives.”

“I don’t agree with you.” Sam frowned as he passed Scott his bowl of soaked grains. “The only reason I’m not suggesting you do something else is the severity of this.” Sam gestured around them, at the tiny town of makeshift shelters, none of them anything that would protect them from a bad storm.

“I know. I’ll come back, Sam. I swear it.” Steve’s pack was too light on his back.

“What have you got to protect yourself?” Scott asked, staring at Steve’s scabbard.

With a sigh, Steve rested his hand on his hip. It was a familiar, easy motion. The sword in the scabbard would offer some protection against any wayward travelers meaning to attack him. It was unlikely he’d run into any of those going north.

It’d be useless against a rampaging marsh hog. 

“We don’t have any arrows to spare,” Steve said with a shrug that was meant to set Sam and Scott at ease.

They just frowned in unison.

“Maybe take one of the daggers we found?” Sam suggested. “You could always throw it in a pinch.”

Steve thought of throwing one of the ornate daggers. They were showpieces that would cost more than he’d ever make in his lifetime. He couldn’t help the deep laugh that fought its way out of his chest at the absurdity of the idea. 

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head with a smile he couldn’t quite hide. “I’ll take the set of ‘throwing daggers’ we found.”

That got Sam laughing and Scott grinning at his bowl of mush. Steve was thankful to find something to laugh about before he made his way into the literal unknown. He looked up to see Peggy making her way over. She was holding a rolled piece of parchment.

“Good morning, Peggy,” Scott called, and he shifted over on the log to make room for her to sit.

Peggy greeted them as she sat down. “Well, Steve. Here it is.” She spread the map out across her lap, the dirt-spotted parchment covering her stained skirt. An ink line ran up the page, with several dots along the way.

“We’re just above where the river forks,” she said as she put her finger at the middle of the map. “With Odinstown just below us, as you know, and your little town a bit past that.” As she spoke, she traced the ink link north. “Maybe about a day from here would be the Post. After that, accounts vary on if there’s anything beyond that.”

Steve nodded, and managed not to bit his lip as he stared at the map. “When you put it like that, this seems rather foolish, doesn’t it?”

Sam and Scott opened their mouths to agree, but Peggy held up one hand. “It does, but I can’t help but to feel the gods have called on you for some reason. You’ve helped to find the means to a harvest for us, and perhaps you will continue to protect us.”

“Let me go with you,” Sam said. “They won’t miss one more.”

Steve shook his head, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “They will. Scott will. Let me worry about myself, and you can worry about everyone else here on my behalf.”

“He’s not wrong,” Scott said, digging his good foot into the dirt with a shy smile. “Let me be selfish. Stay, Sam.”

“After I pass the Post, I’ll travel for three additional days,” Steve said, looking at the map again. There was no good way to determine how far north that would bring him, or what to expect. Peggy had drawn a few mountains to the east of the river, an approximate location. “If I don’t find anything, I’ll come back.”

“A week, then.” Peggy’s eyes shone with a confidence Steve wished he could tap into. “We’ll look forward to your return.”


	2. Chapter 2

# 2

 

“Wanda?” Bucky called out into the darkness and waited, afraid to speak louder. He could sense her somewhere nearby, her form a rough outline in his mind, but he was unable to pinpoint which direction to face.

Her voice came softly from above him, just to his side. “Here.” The clouds seemed to pull away as she floated down to the ground, landing in front of him. The light glow around her hands dissipated as she released her Windweaving and smiled up at him. “Sorry. I’ve been taking to the heights these days. It just feels safer.”

“I don’t blame you.” Bucky grinned to hide his unease of the nighttime shadows. Just two weeks ago, he would have wandered through the forest in the dead of night without a weapon. That had all changed. “If I were able to, I’d live in the clouds too.”

Wanda tested the earth under her feet, as if it was too solid and unforgiving. “Pietro says I need to spend more time on the ground. That I’ll lose my mind and become a fairy if I don’t.”

“Pietro has no clue what he’s talking about. That’s a superstition mothers tell to prevent their little Airweavers from flying away too young.” Bucky waved the thought away. “Have you found anything?” He paused. “Are _they_ nearby?”

Wanda shook her head. “Nothing, but that’s a good thing, right?” Even in the darkness, just the moon illuminating them between trees, her frown was unmistakable.  

“If I could just see his face again, figure out who we’re up against,” Bucky muttered. He played with the end of his long, brown hair, looping it and twisting the loop again and again before smoothing it all out. “But without any information, without any idea of what to do? He killed half the council and we can’t go up against that blind.”

A gentle rumble under the feet was Pietro sending a signal through his Earthweaving: _I’m nearby._

“Have you found anything, Pietro?” Bucky asked a few moments later as he emerged from between the trees, his silver hair sparkling in the luster of moonlight.

“I think that he’s circling back to the palace,” Pietro reported. “He has at least two with him.”

“Blood and damnation,” swore Bucky. “You’re positive about that?”

Pietro nodded, and the ground beneath them pulsed softly in response to his nerves. “I felt them on the path. Unmistakeable.”

“So what do you think?” Wanda was hovering off of the ground a few inches, keeping her Airweaving active just enough to soothe her own frazzled nerves. “Do we go back and try to confront the human?”

Bucky closed his eyes and tried to consider their options. “He’s already killed half of the Elder council. What are we going to do against that?”

“So we’re just going to run and pretend we don’t know what he’s trying to do?” Pietro’s question was more of a rebuke.

“Children,” Bucky muttered. “Always wanting to rush in.”

“We’re not that young,” Wanda countered. “And Pietro is right. We can run, but what good will that do? We’ll just be half a world away when he ends everything.”

Bucky couldn’t disagree with her, but marching to their imminent deaths felt a little bit like a waste. He bit his tongue, and considered their options again. Half the Elder council was dead - possibly the whole council. He hadn’t seen any of the others in the past week. Wanda and Pietro were excellent Weavers, but they still needed time to practice their craft, to grow into it.

And elves hadn’t been using their magic offensively for, well, centuries now.

“We can look for someone else to help us?” Wanda asked after a pause. “Maybe there’s no more of us left, but we could try finding someone else.”

“Who?” Pietro laughed at the idea. “The fairies won’t come near us. The humans will try to kill us just the same as this one. Only difference is we can take _those_ humans out. They don’t have magic like he does.”

Bucky shook his head and set his jaw as he considered the only option left. “Let’s go to the Palace. Carefully. We’ll try to get a feel for his plans. Without being seen.” Bucky closed his eyes. “I’ve seen enough death to tide me over for the next millennium.”

 

*

 

The Palace was gorgeous, once upon a time. Now the black and white swirled marble was cracked, the whole back corner of the castle crumbled into dust. What was left intact was gouged and weakened, in desperate need of an Earthweaver’s talents.

Bucky crept forward, staying in the tree line as the Palace loomed on the horizon in front of them. At night, the marble caught the light of the moon and seemed to shimmer. Next to the Palace was the Crystal Lake. This far away, Bucky couldn’t see the broken dam, but the day the dam had broken was the day the killings had started.

Bucky hated that dam.

He motioned to Pietro to send out his Weaving, and with a little focus, Pietro extended lines through the dirt, prodding the Weaving forward an inch or two at a time lest his presence be caught by another Weaver.

“Three,” Pietro confirmed after an impossibly long time. “They’re on the far side of the Palace, close to the lake.”

Wanda had her eyes closed, listening to the wind. Bucky glanced at her, and wondered if she was also sending out a Weaving. He didn’t send one of his own, didn’t dare risk having three active from the same spot.

“Pull back,” Bucky instructed Pietro.

He did, just as carefully as he had sent it out.

After a few minutes, Wanda set foot on the ground without a sound. “If we want to hear anything they’re saying, we’re going to have to get much closer. It’s too windy.”

Bucky frowned. “You said they’re near the water, right?”

Pietro nodded. “They’re in the Southern Gardens.”

“Ok. Let me see what I can do.” Bucky fixed Pietro and Wanda with a look. “You guys stay here. No sense in all of us risking our necks.”

When he was convinced they would at least pretend to listen, Bucky took a deep breath and crept out of the tree cover, step by careful step. He needed to make it to the water’s edge. If they were in the Southern Gardens, they were a lot closer than he wanted, but the lake did curve up to towards the forest, giving him just the smallest bit of cover behind the palace’s long, thankfully mostly intact wall.

Bucky crept forward until he was inches from the lake. He stared out at water visible in front of him. The crystal blue water was so much lower now that the dam had broken. He knelt and then lay on the grass, reaching out. For a moment, as he put his hand on the top of the cold water, he wondered what the river below the dam looked like now.

In a sudden rush, his Weaving took hold of him, and he was in the vantage of a fish, swimming through flooded waters, passing human buildings and trees almost completely underwater. He kept swimming, going downstream past destruction until his Weaving couldn’t reach any father. With a sudden snap like he’d been yanked back through the entire distance, his mind came back to his body. Bucky pulled his hand from the water and groaned as his head spun, the world out of focus around him.

He scrunched his eyes closed, thankful he was already on the ground, and rode out the nausea until the world slowed down to a more manageable whirl.

“I didn’t need that just now,” he hissed at the water, as if it could hear him.

He knew that it did.

The wavering sensation in his head cleared, and Bucky finally trusted himself enough to put his hand back on top of the water. It wasn’t as shockingly cold as it had been a few moments ago. He sent out his Weaving like a ripple under the surface of the water, probing for the presence of anything. Fish darted by here and there, drawn in by the current of the water rushing towards the hole in the dam.

Bucky closed his eyes, concentrating. His Weaving shuddered, rippling in the water, and warning him that the others were near. With the last bit of his concentration, he managed to expand the Weaving just enough to build a picture. The image in his mind wavered like the ripples of the water.

There was the _human_ with his aged face and dangerous eyes, and there were two elves around him. Bucky almost reeled back in surprise, but it just made so much sense. How else could this man have gotten so close to the palace for his first attack without anyone sounding an alarm?

He’d had help.

Bucky’s nausea rose again at the idea that his own kind would betray them. That they’d help a _human._ Bucky sucked air into his lungs, his hands starting to shake. He tried to keep his Weaving going, but it was too much. The image of the human and the two elves dripped away. It had been too blurry to identify who was helping him.

With a jerk that he knew was too hard, Bucky pulled back on his Weaving. The water splashed as it came back, too loud to be unnoticed, and Bucky didn’t turn to look for if they were coming after him.

He just ran.

Bucky scrambled across the grass as the water behind him rose up in a furious Weaving, lashing forward out of the lake. If it’d just been him against another Waterweaver, he’d have stayed and fought, but he kept running, making for the treeline.

The palace grounds had never seemed quite so large before. Bucky covered less than a quarter of the lawn before he heard shouting behind him. One of the elves came around the palace wall, something shining in his hand.

The new elf was trying to set a spark.

“Bloody Fireweavers,” Bucky ground out just as a long, elegant wave of water crashed around him and wound around his arms and legs. It began to pull him back towards the lake.

Bucky’s fingers slid through the wet grass as he tried to catch himself from falling. He concentrated on the drops of water and bound them in his own Weaving, sending it arcing into the Weaving tangled around his limbs, trying to fight it back.

Whoever was controlling the other Waterweaving had cast an elegant net though, and Bucky struggled to push his Weaving through it.

A sudden rush of smoldering heat behind him let Bucky know the Fireweaver had finally gotten his spark. Bucky gasped for breath as he turned to see a line of fire snaking through the air.

He flattened himself against the ground, a desperate roll as he tugged at the watery net around him, trying to avoid the fire. It singed through the air above him before pulling back. Bucky split his Weaving, sending half of it at the fire and keeping half working on the net. Immediately, he was sliding twice as fast on the ground back to the water.

Inches away from the bank again, Bucky couldn’t help a rueful grin. At least the water would keep him safe from burning, right up until he drowned. He strained to work against the water net, his whole body tense as he waited for the inevitable splash.

The earth beneath him rumbled, and several spikes sprung out of the ground, severing the Weaving tangled around Bucky. Bucky pushed against the spikes, rolling out of the way of another sizzling fire strand and bounced on to his feet, trying to get a hold of the situation.

Pietro stood just outside of the forest cover, working his Weaving back through the earth towards the Fireweaver. The Waterweaving was already forming up again and rising out of the lake, and Bucky couldn’t see where the elf stood to cut it off at the source. He heaved out a breath and, dropping a few steps back, put a hand on the water, coaxing his own Weaving into action again.

Right before he closed his eyes to focus, Bucky saw the Fireweaver turn his attention to Pietro, his thin lick of flames snapping through the air. Bucky was just going to have to hope that Pietro and Wanda could keep the elf occupied without getting themselves hurt.

He turned his attention to his Weaving. Stealth wasn’t a concern anymore, so he pushed it across the water at full speed, leaving a cold spray in its wake.

The vibrations in the water shifted, as other Waterweaver worked to rebuild his net. Pietro’s spikes had receded into the ground, and Bucky was an easy target if he didn’t work quickly. Stealing the design his opponent had used, Bucky wove a net of water, the thin stream of spray knitting together in a simple pattern. Trusting instinct, Bucky urged the Weaving up and out of the lake, casting it towards the vibrations of the other Weaver.

His Weaving slammed into something solid, and Bucky wrapped it around once and yanked it back, hoping to knock his opponent off balance. Bucky strained at the effort, like he was working on muscles he hadn’t needed to use in a long time.

With a wavering sort of thud, Bucky’s Weaving disintegrated, spraying water in every direction.

The sudden shatter slammed into Bucky like a boulder, and he stumbled, going to his knee to regain his balance.

“What the bloody hells just happened?” he whispered to no one in particular.

Pietro was still facing off against the Fireweaver, sending up earthen spikes to keep him on the run.

Even across the lawn, even in the dark of the moonlight, Bucky saw the strain in Pietro’s face, the way his eyes were half-closed, just open enough to direct the spikes.

Bucky started running again, wishing in vain that he’d thought to keep a vial of water on him. Every step he took away from the lake was a step away from being able to use his Weaving.

He shuddered as the echo of his Weaving shattering replayed in his mind. They had to get away. If there was someone out there who could shut down their Weavings like that, they didn’t stand a chance.

Water splashed behind him, the Waterweaver trying to cast his net again, but Bucky managed to dive just out of reach. His already soaked pant hem dripped with every step.

“Need to get out of here!” Bucky shouted to Pietro as soon as he was closer. “They’ve got something to destroy a Weaving!”

Pietro nodded, like he understood, and closed his eyes as he drew his Weaving back towards him. The Fireweaver turned to advance on them, and Pietro shouted as he split his Weaving into seven spikes, trapping the Fireweaver in place.

Pietro turned and ran with Bucky. His Weaving wouldn’t stay in place for more than a few moments, but it would have to be enough.

Then there was a spark of black light, and the spikes disappeared. Pietro groaned as if he’d been shoved.

“Blood and damnation! What was that?” Pietro sounded dazed, but he didn’t miss a step.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, truthfully. “Keep running.”

The freed Fireweaver was no doubt trying to set another spark, but Bucky didn’t look back. They hit the treeline, and Wanda descended from the sky, pushing out her Weaving in a great gust of wind, knocking the Fireweaver down.

“Go!” she shouted. “I can hold them back!”

She hadn’t seen Pietro’s Weaving shatter. Bucky cursed as he stopped long enough to call for her to get moving. She shot him a look, and he gestured frantically, so she sent out another gust and turned and ran.

They crashed between trees in the darkness, and Bucky was nearly laughing at the thought that they’d be able to lose their attackers with all of the noise they were making.

“Hold still,” Wanda commanded from behind them, sending out her Weaving.

Bucky managed not to yelp when a little gust of air puffed up under his feet. He took a tentative step, buffered by the wind, and made no sound. Pietro took a silent step ahead of him.  
  
“Go!” Wanda hissed. “I can’t do this for long.”

They ran with air beneath their feet, sliding by trees and over brush, heading deeper and deeper into the forest. Only when they paused and heard nothing but the night owls calling did they stop long enough to catch their breath.

“What in the hells happened back there?” Pietro asked, his voice quiet but sharp. “I can’t start my Weaving.”

In the dark night, the dense forest meant he could hardly see but for the slight glow around Wanda’s fingers as she kept her Weaving active, doing her best to maintain a safe perimeter around them.

Without water nearby, Bucky couldn’t try his own Weaving. His stomach sank at the idea that he’d lost the ability, somehow, and he forced himself to breath evenly. “I don’t know. We’re lucky we got away. If we got away.”

Wanda shifted from her spot, probably sending her Weaving out a little farther. “I think we’re safe for now,” she said. “But it can’t hurt to keep moving.”

Bucky rubbed as his eyes as they walked. The moon was high overhead, but the fear of being caught kept him moving long past when he would normally suggest a break. Another lifetime ago, he would have told anyone that he knew the forest well enough to navigate it with his eyes closed, but tonight was different. Trees loomed around them in patterns he didn’t remember, and even the brush seemed off, as if someone had uprooted it and replanted it in the wrong spots.

Next to him, Pietro blew out a breath. Every so often, he’d pause for the briefest moment, trying to send a Weaving to the earth. The lack of vibrations in the ground let Bucky know how successful he was in his attempts.

Wanda didn’t say anything, though she trailed her Weaving through the air between them, trying to balance keeping an eye out for their attackers without giving away their position. Bucky tried not to think about that too much and did his best to navigate to the Star of Odin above the forest. It shifted in and out behind clouds, and the trees seemed determined to block it when the clouds didn’t.

He wasn’t entirely convinced that they weren’t just traipsing in large circles, but he hoped for the best as they kept moving. It wasn’t too much longer before Wanda and Pietro were starting to slow, their steps uncertain in the darkness of the night.

Bucky checked the position of Odin’s Star above them and matched it between the trees ahead of them. If he hadn’t messed it up too badly, they should be very close to their best hope for a chance to rest and regroup.

“Not too much farther,” he called to encourage them, completely unsure if he was telling the truth.

The rush of energy he’d felt after fighting the Fireweaver and Waterweaver was finally starting to dissipate, and Bucky’s body protested every step. He was going to have bruises tomorrow from slamming into the ground.

Not wanting to die tonight helped him get one foot in front of another, his ears twitching at every noise. The familiar sounds of the forest at night were as wrong as the trees, like they weren’t even in the same forest he’d explored for the past hundred years.   

He just wanted to get some sleep. And to wake up in his own bed, this nightmare of a night forgotten.

The stars went behind the clouds again, and Bucky resisted the urge to shout in frustration. He settled for a growl, trying to imagine the placement of the stars through the trees.

“Where are we?” Wanda asked. She had just the thinnest line of her Weaving still active, her hand just barely glowing in the dark as she probed out into the forest.

Bucky paused and waited for the clouds to shift. An owl called out, too close by, and another jolt of nervous energy flooded his body. He listened for the snap of a stick or the shuffle of leaves, his tired muscles somehow finding the means to tense once again. Everything ached.

He just wanted to get out of the night alive.

The clouds shifted and Bucky focused on the stars again. “This way.” Despite the buzzing insects and calling frogs, his voice was still too loud.

Bucky couldn’t keep track of how much longer they walked, just that his feet throbbed with every step and his hands twinged with an odd sort of numbness down his fingertips that he attributed to the bone deep tiredness spreading through his body.

They came to a clearing and Bucky held his breath as he looked across the way, the moon in front of the clouds long enough to confirm that he hadn’t gotten lost.

“Is this it?” Wanda asked, hiding at the edge of the treeline.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah.” He even managed a bit of a smile. “This is where I’d come when I didn't want the elders pestering me.” The fact that the elders would never pester him again broke his smile just like that weird energy had broken his Weaving.

“It’s clear,” Wanda said after a moment, letting go of her Weaving.

They made their way across the clearing to the small cave entrance, and Bucky’s feet seemed even heavier as they walked across the dirt and weedy grass. As soon as they were inside, he leaned against the rough wall and slid to the ground, sitting on the dirt and rocks as if they were the softest down-filled pillow. He closed his eyes, not that it made much of a difference in the black of the night when the clouds covered the stars.

Pietro cursed next to him, sounding as though he had sat down too. “I can’t do it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t Weave.” He was quiet, but there was a frantic edge in his voice.

“What happened exactly?” Wanda had joined them, and they all sat in the dirt in a circle as though that would protect them.

“Something hit my Weaving.” Pietro considered each word, trying to remember exactly what happened. “It was like a pulse of energy and then everything shattered. Like I had turned to ice and someone hit me with a hammer.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s fingers seemed to buzz with nothingness as he remembered the sharp pain of his Weaving breaking. “It was horrible.”

“But that’s not something they could do, right?” Wanda’s concern echoed down the cave, fading into nothing.

“No,” agreed Bucky, rubbing at his face. “It’s not. But they did.”

The cave was silent as they sat, none of them quite sure what they needed to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the tumblr post for the artwork for this chapter [here!!](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/post/179190251249/the-first-artwork-for-my-collaboration-with)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're starting to get into the "hurt" part of things, so expect violence and blood typical of a Marvel movie. I'm really thrilled by the reception of this little tale so far. :)

#  3

 

Steve tapped his fingers along the top of his scabbard as he walked. He kept the river in sight on his right. The waters, having claimed the trees and brush, lapped up to the newly formed banks. Waterlogged plants danced under the stream, and more than one fish moved through the water over the newly deposited clay.

Not for the first time, he wished he had some sort of fishing pole. He kept walking, ignoring the gnawing hunger dancing on the edge of his awareness. He’d promised Peggy he would turn around after the fourth day, but — despite his dwindling food — it seemed a waste to have come so far and return empty handed. Maybe he’d go one day longer.

He kept an eye out for berry bushes as he walked under the light of the rising morning sun filtering through the trees. The comfortable buzz of insects blended with the singing birds, and if it weren’t for the swollen river rushing beside him, Steve could have closed his eyes and pretended he was just taking a walk before he returned to the smithy for the rest of his morning duties.

The underbrush thinned out as the forest floor started to rise into a steep hill, and Steve appreciated being able to climb without having to fight brambles. The trees thinned, too, as he worked his way up, the noise of the river receding slightly as he neared the top of the steep hill.

Steve looked out from his new vantage point, hoping to spot something, anything in the distance. Of course there were trees he had just passed through to the south, but he peering into the distance, to see if anything was noticeable from the height of the hill. The trees just stretched into the distance, blending into each other the longer he looked. 

The west held nothing but trees too, though after a long while, Steve almost swore he could see where they started to thin out and lead to the uncharted plains. Crossing the river with it’s new current would require a boat, but Steve looked to the east too, just in case. The water stretching across the horizon, and there were countless trees beyond that, but nothing that required a second look.

Steve took a deep breath and paused. He almost didn’t want to look across to the north, because if he didn’t see anything, there was absolutely no reason to keep going. He turned forward, and lifted his eyes, past the tops of trees and into the distance until he realized that he did see something. 

Visible ahead was a sheer cliff with a beautiful, huge waterfall. It was nothing like the little waterfall down at the Delta, where the children used to play. It was taller than every building in Odinstown stacked on top of each other, and it was wide, as wide as the new river. If he closed his eyes and listened very closely, he could almost make out its powerful roar.

His heart thumped oddly in his chest as he stared at it, in awe of the speed of the water, the sheer force of the spray as it collided with the rocks at the base of the river and sent up a cloud of mist.

He took in the sight, convinced his mind was playing tricks on him, and that somehow, the amount of water pouring down the side of the cliff was magnified and distorted by the sunlight. A chill he couldn’t quite describe danced down his spine and settled into his bones. He shivered.

The light caught on something just beyond the waterfall, and Steve squinted, trying to make out the shape of the rocks on the land beyond the water. 

They weren’t rocks, he realized as he shaded his eyes from the sun with a hand to his forehead. It was a building that appeared to be partially destroyed. If he could see it from all the way back here, it had to be huge, perhaps bigger than the entirety of Odinstown.

Steve’s heart raced, his hunger completely forgotten as he dared to consider the idea that Peggy’s elves and castles weren’t just a story.

He blew out a breath, turning over his options in his mind. He could go back and get Sam, but that’d be over three days of travel to return, and three more to bring him here. Sam needed to help set up the new harvest, not traipse through the woods for a week to gawk at water and rocks.

Steve set his shoulders. He would go forward and gather as much information as he could before returning. It was his only option.

Suddenly, a twig cracked from deeper within the forest, and Steve turned toward the noise. He saw nothing but trees and the underbrush and birds flitting across the sky. A beat passed before another stick crunched under something that was moving slowly, and Steve had a sudden urge to put some space between himself and whatever was moving down there in the forest. Glancing over at the ruins on the cliff in front of him to try to commit the image to his memory, and uncertain how he’d  _ climb _ up those rocks, he started his descent down the hill.

The slow and steady crack of brush and branches seemed to follow, the pace unchanging but relentless. Steve kept a hand on the hilt of his sword as he made his way through the forest as quietly and swiftly as his feet would carry him. More than once, he glanced at the river rushing by and wondered if he’d be strong enough to fight the current and swim if he needed to flee. Or if the creature would just swim right behind him.

Another twig snapped, the creature or person or whatever it was seeming to fall behind a little. Steve let out a half sigh of relief, but didn’t dare slow his pace, picking through the brush near the flooded river as quickly and quietly as he could. He ignored the insistent pang of hunger in his stomach, his body fueled by anticipation and nerves.

The thing, whatever it was, shuffled through the leaves, unconcerned at the noise it made when it matched Steve’s speed. As if it knew that it’d be able to keep moving long after Steve tired. As if it knew that Steve’s waning strength was already no concern. 

Steve passed giant trees, their branches heavy with age and draped in beautiful gray green moss. He had a fleeting thought of bringing Peggy here to see them, but then a loud crack, like a giant branch snapping in half had him moving faster again.

He didn’t know how long he spent trying to get away from the unseen creature. The sun had moved through the sky to signal the approach of night when he stopped and listened. 

The forest was silent. He didn’t hear any sticks or leaves crunching, but he also didn’t hear any birds. The insects had gone quiet. A wind rustled through the branches, shaking the leaves once and then disappearing until the trees, too, were unnaturally quiet.

It sent a shiver down Steve’s spine, and he kept moving, even though he didn’t hear the creature in the forest behind him. 

Now his hunger was harder to ignore, and Steve had to abandon his previous plan of attempting to fish for dinner. He reached into his pack and took out a dried strip of meat. He chewed on it as he walked and tried not to think about how little food he had left. He’d managed to catch two fish over the past three days with the broken net Sam had given him, but he didn’t dare stop in this spot of the forest, where the only sound was the occasional splash of water when it lapped up against the half submerged tree trunks.

The unnatural silence persisted well into the evening, even after Steve had finished his meager dinner, and the sun was poised to disappear behind the horizon of the tree tops in less than an hour. The evening birdsong was absent.

Steve had the sudden sense of eyes on him, and he froze in place, listening closely in the stillness of the forest. 

A single bush rustled behind him before a giant beast burst out of the underbrush, teeth snapping straight for Steve’s throat. Steve shouted as he grabbed for his sword. He didn’t have time for any fancy defenses, he just slammed the blade up, trying to get it between him and the animal.

The animal crashed into Steve before he could get in position and knocked him to the ground. All Steve saw was shaggy, dark gray fur and the snarl of a giant muzzle, long, sharp teeth reaching for Steve’s throat. 

Winded from the fall, Steve struggled to orient his blade, settling for heaving the pommel up towards the creature’s underbelly and wishing in vain for his set of armor that was underwater in a smithy he might never see again.

He managed to surprise the animal long enough that he could get a hand up toward its throat, and he strained from the effort of getting his hand partially around its thick, furry neck. It could have reached an inch closer and bitten off  _ his _ neck if it wanted to. 

The creature growled, a low warning that had Steve’s heart pounding. He tried to kick up, but the beast was huge and heavy, haunches against Steve’s legs. It wasn’t pinning his sword arm, not completely, so Steve wrestled up his sword with as much force as he could manage, thumping the flat of the blade against the beast’s underbelly. 

It grunted, annoyed, and snapped at Steve’s face again. Steve’s head was already pushed into the dirt, twigs and leaves grinding into his scalp and back. Teeth scraped against his cheek, too solid and sharp, and warmth ran down his face, blood from the bite dripping to his neck.

With a shout of desperation, Steve wriggled his legs up underneath the creature and heaved with everything he had. He flung the creature back, winding it long enough for him to gain his feet and, finally, get his sword up between them.

  


“I’m no easy prey, beast,” Steve snarled, blood smeared on his lips. He spat it at the ground.

The creature circled Steve, giant and on four paws, some sort of humongous wolflike creature with eyes as red as the gem in the handle of the dagger Steve had tucked at his side. He held no illusions of being able to fight off the beast if it decided the meal was worth the risk. He held himself as tall as he could, his shoulders back and his sword between them.

He thought of his greatsword, lost in the flood. The bastard blade he’d found was serviceable, but not at all what he would have picked to fight some sort of impossibly huge animal. The giant wolf bared its teeth again, and Steve would have rather taken his chances against a marsh hog unarmed than whatever this was.

The wolf howled in the otherwise silent forest, and the hairs on Steve’s arms stood up straight. He might as well have been naked for what good the roughspun cloth tunic would protect him. His arms felt bare, protected by a layer of cloth covered in dirt.

“Go on!” Steve shouted, gesturing to the forest as if the animal would just turn tail and leave.

It didn’t. It pawed at the ground once, as though it would charge. Steve widened his stance and kept his blade up; he wouldn’t be taken down again if he could help it. 

The giant wolf circled again, its measured steps speaking volumes: it didn’t think Steve would be a threat for very much longer.

Steve’s heart thundered as he ran through scenarios in his mind. He couldn’t turn and run; the creature would knock him down the moment he tried to turn. If he fought, he’d be hard pressed to do damage before it got close enough to maul him. His cheek burned from the bite, but the blessedly shallow cut had stopped bleeding for now.

The idea of throwing one of the daggers at it nearly wrenched a laugh out of his chest. Short of a miracle, Steve was beginning to think he wasn’t going to see the sun rise.

He wouldn’t go down without a fight. Surprise was the only element he had, and the wolf was circling closer.

Moments and movement blurred together as Steve grabbed a dagger and whipped it at the wolf. It didn’t need to harm; it just needed to distract. The wolf followed the path of the dagger, taking its blood red eyes off of Steve for a half of a moment, and Steve took his opportunity. He matched the wolf’s howl with one of his own, a noise that emanated from deep in his body, filled with the frustration of the flood and the destruction of their towns and his desperate desire to not die alone, days away from what remained of his friends and his life.

Teeth snapping, the wolf batted the dagger aside and lunged forward, leaping high into the air. Steve put his blade up as he attempted to follow its arc. The wolf landed behind Steve and tackled him from behind, the power behind its push knocking Steve off his feet and pushing him forward. 

Somehow he managed to twist in some semblance of a somersault as he fell, landing on his side and getting his blade between them. The angle was awkward and unsustainable, but it bought him another moment. He didn’t waste time, just drew his legs up and kicked before the wolf attempted to bite the offending limb off. His boot connected solidly against the wolf’s ribs, and the wolf whimpered at the impact. 

It drew back, shaking itself with a glare that felt almost human.

Steve got to his feet. The bite on his cheek was pressed full of dirt, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Steve knew he needed to clean the wound before rot had a chance to make a home. If he couldn’t figure out a way to best the beast, rot would be the least of his worries.

Steve panted as he stood, but the wolf didn’t seem much ruffled. The occasional shallow breath was the only indication that Steve had gotten one blow in. 

“You and me, beast,” Steve said. HIs voice was rough around the edges, and he spat out another bit of blood. The wolf didn’t understand his language; it was ridiculous to talk to it. There was still somehow comfort in hearing the sound of a voice, even his own, in the moments before he was to die.

Steve raised his sword as though it was a proper duel. As though he could  _ yield _ , and the wolf would listen. 

Who knew staring down his death would come with a sense of humor, Steve thought, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow. His legs were stiffening, and his stomach gnawed at him, begged him to stop exerting himself even as nervous energy coursed through his body, trying to sustain him despite the day’s hike. A sparkle like a drop of dew on a leaf nearby made Steve blink. He didn’t dare take his eyes off of the wolf, but the evening was no time for dew.

And if Steve could find a beautiful, ruined palace and a huge, roaring waterfall and a giant wolf, what else was lying in wait in this forest of the damned?

The wolf rushed forward in another attack, but Steve shoved his sword out, warding it off at the last moment. It leapt back and paced. It understood patience. Steve’s body could only last so much longer. 

Steve was wary to try another dagger, but it seemed to be the only way. He laid fingers on the handle of another useless dagger, and sent up a prayer to the unresponsive gods. 

The giant wolf rushed him first, wary of the sword but moving with a speed that belied its enormous size. Steve couldn’t get his blade in position, and he scrambled backwards, trying to put space between them. The wolf snapped at his thigh, teeth digging into the muscle, and Steve grunted in pain as he fell back.

Pain bloomed from the back of his head as he fell, hitting a rock on the ground. The world wavered around him, the blue of the sky twisting into the green leaves of the treetops, and Steve closed his eyes, unable to focus in the middle of the burning bites on his cheek and leg and the headache swallowing his awareness. 

The wolf’s breath was fire hot on his face as it jumped on top of him, scratching deep down his arm and rearing its head back for a final attack. Steve flinched in anticipation, but the heated scrape of teeth never came.

Steve opened his eyes to a blinding flash of iridescent light that seemed to flicker in front of him, a tiny, human like shape about the size of his hand, blurring around the edges with the gray of the wolf’s fur.

The wolf stopped.

Steve did his best to focus on something to stop from passing out. The wolf’s blood red eyes came into view and he watched with every remaining ounce of strength in his body. 

They turned green. 

The iridescent being between them held its ground, and Steve managed to make out a pair of flickering wings. The wound on his cheek pulsed and a new wave of nausea slammed over him. He closed his eyes.

He couldn’t manage to open them back up.

 

*

 

The sky was dark, the leaves indistinguishable from the clouds, both swaying with the wind. A sliver of moonlight slid between the treetops, illuminating Steve’s injuries, dried blood crusted around the bite on his cheek.

Steve opened his eyes, touching a hand to his face. The movement was slow and cautious, but relief flooded his body as he realized he could move. His arm ached, and fresh blood seeped into the ground beneath him. He groaned as he rolled over to his side, trying to take stock of the injuries. He touched his cheek and his hand came away bloody.

With a grunt, Steve pushed away from the ground and sat up, listening for the wolf. The owls called above him, and the comfortable buzz of insects surrounded him.

He scanned along the forest. A wisp of smoke caught his attention, a small fire burning nearby. The fire was tiny, maybe just a foot across. A small squirrel was roasting above the flame, perched on some sticks, and Steve’s stomach growled.

Steve pulled the squirrel off of the fire. It was evenly roasted, the bottom just starting to char like someone had been tending to it until very recently. The chill of night air cooled the meat quickly and Steve tore into it. 

It was the most delicious meal he could imagine.

He had to do something about the throbbing wounds, but he sat there for a long time, just chewing and swallowing and listening to the bugs. He kept a hand on his sword, his fingers tapping at the pommel even as he scoffed at the idea that he could defend himself with it. He turned over the image of the giant wolf in his mind, and the tiny, iridescent being that had appeared between them. 

He’d have thought he was imagining things, but the wolf was gone and he wasn’t dead, so something must have came to his rescue. Next to him, the small fire continued to burn, a warm blaze in the dark and another indicator of his unknown rescuer.

Finally, he grabbed his other shirt out of his bag and started to tear at the hem, making a long strip. He fumbled, his fingers sore, and dropped the fabric in the dirt. He cursed and scooped it up, brushing off what debris he could and shoving it on top of his bag to keep it as clean as possible. He scooted over towards the water’s edge and dug up a handful of dark clay. The water was cold and the clay slippery in his fingers. 

He spread it on his arm and winced, the shock of cool clay and the pressure of touching the deep wound sending sharp twinges of pain up into his shoulders. He had to hope it was enough to keep out the rot as he tied the strip of mostly clean fabric around his arm, tying it tight enough to keep it closed without compromising his hand. 

He curled his fingers up and down a few times, until he was certain he hadn’t tied the bandage too tight. He touched his face, tracing the outline of the teeth marks and tight skin on his cheek. There was nothing to be done but to rinse it in the cold water. He hissed out a breath at the chilling shock of water, and the wound seemed to pulse in pain with every beat of his heart. He patted a bit of the clay on his cheek, closing his eyes and breathing through the discomfort until that pain, too, began to fade into a persistent small buzz. 

He tended to his thigh in the same manner as his arm, tying another strip of fabric and wishing to Odin for actual bandages. There hadn’t been any to spare for his fool’s quest, of course.

Steve sighed, pulling out his blanket and putting out the fire before praying to the unhearing gods that the enormous beast wouldn’t circle back around. He settled against the hard earth, trying to find as comfortable position as he could. His leg was stiff and his arm burned no matter how he turned, and it took what felt like hours, but eventually, exhaustion pulled him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the tumblr post for the artwork from this chapter [here!!!](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/post/179216234889/the-second-artwork-for-my-collaboration-with)


	4. Chapter 4

#  4

 

Bucky opened his eyes to the sound of Wanda screaming. He scrambled to get up, cursing and shoving sleepiness aside as he tried to activate his Weaving before remembering they were nowhere near water.

“Your hands!” A little calmer now, Wanda’s voice was still fraught with worry.

In the dark of the cave, Bucky could make out Wanda holding Pietro’s hands, but he couldn’t tell what Wanda was talking about. She activated her Weaving, creating a gentle breeze and bringing a touch of light into the cave.

Pietro’s hands were darkened at the fingertips, streaks of dusty gray running along his fingers and traveling up into his palms. “My fingers are numb,” he whispered, bending them slowly as though a quick movement would cause them to crumble.

From his dark spot against the wall of the cave, Bucky flexed his fingers. They moved, but they didn’t  _ feel _ correct, like he couldn’t quite tell what position they were in without looking at them. His heart thudded in his chest at the realization, and he did his best to stay calm for the sake of Wanda and Pietro.

“You’re moving them.” Bucky managed to keep his voice even. “As long as you can move them, it’s going to be ok. We just need to figure out what to do to reverse what they did.”

Pietro hunched over and put his hand on the ground. Just like every other time since the fight, there was no rumble in the earth, no indication that he had sent out a Weaving. Bucky frowned, unable to think of anything to make the situation better.

“You are certain we can reverse this?” Wanda asked, quiet, as though talking about it would make it worse.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, but I’ve heard the stories.” Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, drawing in memories of the Elders telling the tales of their people. He sorted through them, trying to organize some sort of narrative. “They talked about the old times, back when we lived with… humans.” Bucky spit out the last word like a curse.

“Oh.” Wanda tapped a thoughtful finger to her chin. Her active Weaving illuminated the movement. “Yes, isn’t there something about working with humans to unlock deeper levels of magic?”

Bucky grimaced. “Well, the stories say so anyhow.”

Pietro didn’t miss the venom in Bucky’s words. “You don’t believe any of that though. You don’t really think we can just find a human and that’ll fix whatever is going on with my Weaving.”

“I don’t,” Bucky agreed. “There’s a reason the Elders cut their bonds with the humans all those centuries ago. The humans tried to take our magic and tried to corrupt it for their own. Just like this  _ human _ who’s trying to do it now! This gods forsaken human who’s not just trying, but doing it.”

Wanda nodded, somber sorrow reflected in her eyes. “And with help from our own.”

The silence filled the cave, as oppressive as a thick cloud of smoke.

“We need to do something,” Pietro finally said. He stared at his hands and frowned. “The elders may be gone, but we can figure it out. We have to.”

Bucky forced himself to nod, to pretend that he knew exactly what they needed to do. “Yes. We will.” 

The mouth of the cave had lightened with the rise of the morning sun. After Wanda sent out a tentative Weaving and declared the area safe, they spilled into the forest once again. Bucky still glanced between branches and brush, scanning for a threat that he didn’t want to find.

Pietro’s gaze darted from tree to tree too, and Bucky managed a rueful grin. 

“They’d have taken care of us right away if they were near,” he said, trying to sound as confident as possible while glancing out into the thick of the forest again. “That gods forsaken human doesn’t know how to do anything without causing a spectacle.”

“Have we considered that perhaps he has the gods on his side?” Wanda pierced Bucky with her even stare. “I have started to think that perhaps, the gods have forsaken  _ us _ .”

PIetro bit his lip at Wanda’s words, but said nothing. He looked at Bucky.

The sun rushed down on them, a bright flare, and Bucky forced a nonchalant shrug. “What does it change if they have? We’re still going to do what needs to be done. We’re still going to do the right thing.”

Bucky picked a direction away from the palace, keeping the sun to his side so that they would move south, which he hoped would help them avoid any more confrontations with the human and his elf buddies. He was well aware that going south meant going towards the humans he refused to beg for help from, but they’d have to take the chance. He refrained from spitting, but his mouth was sour.

“So does that mean you believe in the Summoning Horn?” Wanda asked a little while later as she used her Weaving to help push aside a few particularly thorny bits of the underbrush.

Bucky ducked through the opening, nodding his thanks, and considered the question. “I suppose. Although, if the elders taught me anything, it’s that every story is only half of a truth. And that every storyteller tells the side that makes them look best.”

Pietro barked a short laugh at that and then clapped a hand over his mouth, looking around the forest. When the only noises were the sound of birds and insects, he sighed. “What a way to live,” he grumbled, pushing his hair behind his ear. “Afraid to laugh because I think someone will hear and try to kill us.”

Bucky’s grin was lopsided, and his laughter a little forced in the light air of the morning, but it wasn’t fake. “I never expected it either.”

“But if we had the Summoning Horn,” Wanda continued, “we could just call on the gods. The stories say you can ask them a favor and they might grant it. Can you imagine it? We could ask them to fix your hands, Pietro.”

Bucky shoved his hands into the pockets of his cloak and wondered if they had seen the gray running up into his forearms. “It’s really a children’s tale,” he said after a long minute. Would that it was real, that all they had to do was  _ ask _ and they’d be able to restore their powers.

But what about everyone who had died? For a moment, the wild thought of asking the gods to rewind time and prevent anyone from dying danced in his thoughts. After all, if he was pretending he believed in tall tales, why not ask for something just as grand? Bucky scoffed.

“Anyhow, even if there was a stone of truth to that, no one knows where it was stored. We have to focus on what we can do.” Bucky ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it back as best he could. There was a knot at the end of one of his little braids and he sighed.

A bath sounded so nice right about now. Warm water and a little bit of an active Weaving to provide a swirl of bubbly current in the tub instead of traipsing through the woods, half hungry and scared? Yes. He wanted the bath.

They began working through the descent of the forest, the overgrown path just visible as they pushed aside tangles of vines. Just before the sun hit its highest point of the day, they emerged in a small clearing, a halfway point of sorts, where a huge rock jutted out of the ground. It made a wonderful vantage point to look as far as you could in any direction.

Wanda stepped onto the stone first, turning towards the waterfall that was visible in the distance. “It’s beautiful like this,” she said, wonder in her voice. “It looks so different from when I saw it before.” She paused. “Oh!”

“What’s wrong?” Pietro barreled forward, intent on protecting his sister.

“There’s someone on the cliff!” Wanda pointed.

Bucky emerged onto the rock and gazed past her hand. Someone was scaling the sheer side of the cliff, some twenty feet away from the waterfall. Whoever it was, they were dedicated.

Dedicated, but as dumb as the rocks they were grabbing. Bucky raised an eyebrow as the unknown being reached up and attempted to use a ledge as a handhold. When the waterfall had been smaller, before that deceitful, awful  _ human _ broke the dam, the ledge would have been a good choice. Now it was slippery with spray.

“Is it an elf?” Pietro asked. He peered into the distance. “I can’t tell with their cloak up.”

Bucky frowned. “Who do we know that’s still alive that would be trying to do that instead of coming through the path?” He gestured towards the climbing. “It’s gotta be a human.”

Wanda nodded. “I think you are right. Look at that. You ask for a human, and we get one. What good luck.”

Bucky wiggled his fingers. They moved, but he couldn’t quite feel them. He wouldn’t be able to climb at all if that kept up. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to. That was what the path was for. Bucky couldn’t help a tiny smirk. At least the brambles at the beginning of the forest had done their job, looking fierce enough to prevent the human from trying to venture into their lands through the woods.

“Oh!” Wanda clapped a hand over her mouth and they all turned to watch the maybe human miss his footing and slip, falling off of his perch. 

Wanda sent out her Weaving like a flash of lightning, a thin narrow line that cut through the air as sure as an arrow. But they were too far for her to reach him in time, and he fell, tumbling against the rocks. Wanda’s Weaving got there just in time to break the last bit of his fall, letting him ease to the ground without smashing his head against the dirt.

“Why’d you try to help him?” Bucky asked, curious. He imagined what he could have done if they had been standing near the water. He could have sent out a protective net, the opposite of the net that the Waterweaver had tried to drown him with yesterday.

He wouldn’t have though, for a human. But it would have been nice to know that he could.

Wanda shrugged. “I can’t assume that they deserve to be hurt without knowing their story. Not if I have the ability to prevent it.”

“That’s my sister.” Pietro’s rare smile was warm, but it faded to a frown as he watched the human sit up and rub at his arm. “But what do we do now?”

Bucky bit back his initial response, that they keep going and leave the idiot human to climb to his death, but he couldn’t. He could hear the gods forsaken elders in his ears, their voices mingling in a cacophony of “humans don’t come out by our forest,” and “We haven’t had a human within a day’s traveling distance since we dammed the lake.”

But there was a human here now, and the dam was broken, and maybe, just maybe, this human with rocks for a brain wasn’t trying to kill them.

Bucky wasn’t going to cut his hand over it. He heaved a sigh and nodded towards the human. “Yeah, let’s go see what his story is.”

“You don’t think he’s helping  _ the  _ human, do you?” Pietro looked much more distrustful as he glanced at the human, who was looking up at the cliff and moving farther away from the waterfall to attempt another climb.

Such a ridiculous, persistent human. Bucky rolled his eyes. “Based on what I’m seeing here, I don’t think he’s capable of that level of plotting.”

Pietro nodded slowly. “I still say that Wanda should stay back.” He looked at his hands. “Just in case.”

Wanda shook her head. “I can get there faster than you could. Even with my Weaving, he could still be quite hurt.” And before either of them could say otherwise, she wrapped herself in her Weaving, jumped off of the rock, and floated down towards the human, leaving Bucky and Pietro to scramble back into the forest and make their way through the brambles.

When Bucky emerged through the final maze of brush, he was surprised to see Wanda sitting and talking to the human. The man didn’t look great; his cheek was puffy and bruised, his blond hair was dirt streaked, and his arm and leg were wrapped in a tattered bandage. He didn’t look in any condition to be climbing. 

“You,” Bucky said, looking at him and crossing his arms, “Are an idiot.”

The human looked up from where he was sitting, and his mouth formed into a little round “o” of surprise. Bucky grinned; he knew there was no way the human had been prepared to see them. Bucky’s dark hair might be messy, the braid running along the side of his head partly undone and at least one little golden loop had fallen out in their sprint through the forest, but there was no hiding the glow of his gray blue eyes.

Then Bucky realized the strange man wasn’t looking at his face. He was looking at Bucky’s hands. Bucky flexed his fingers and tried not to wince at the lack of sensation, even as the muscle and gray flesh bent and moved. 

“What are you doing here, interloping on our lands?” Bucky drew himself up to his full height and waited.

The human looked from Wanda to Pietro and then back at Bucky. He licked his lips like he was nervous and Bucky was surprised how much the little flash of tongue pulled his interest. He didn’t change his stern expression.

“Our towns flooded recently.” Despite everything, his injuries and the fall, the human seemed calm. His eyes didn’t glow. They were just blue like the afternoon sky above them. “We lost everything and…” He heaved a breath. “I was trying to find out why.”

Bucky frowned. “Do you have a name?”

“My name is Steve.” The human, Steve, shifted from his spot on the ground and winced. He held himself still. “Was your home destroyed too?”

“Not by the flood.” Wanda glanced at Bucky, probably trying to discern how much they should say.

“It’s unfortunate your home was destroyed, Steve.” Bucky didn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes reacted to his name on Bucky’s tongue. Bucky pressed his lips in a small smile. “You need to go.”

“There’s some sort of destroyed building up there.” Steve nodded to the cliff. “I’m trying to figure out what it was. Everything is so different now and I just can’t go back home without knowing why the river flooded. What if it happens again?”

PIetro and Wanda exchanged a look, and their combined pause was all Bucky needed to know what decision they had made regarding Steve.

He was still a gods forsaken human, though.

“The building, as you called it, is our palace.” Bucky glared at Steve, but he didn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry about that. It looks like it was really beautiful.” 

Humans. Apologizing for things they couldn’t control. But, Bucky reasoned to himself, a  _ human _ had destroyed their palace. Maybe Steve’s apology was warranted. 

“It was.” Bucky considered his next words carefully. “The person who destroyed the palace also broke the dam holding back the waters.”

Steve nodded, like it made sense to him. Bucky wondered if Steve knew that the elders had put the dam in place ages ago. It didn’t matter to him, right? He also said nothing about the majority of the elves being dead. Best let the human think that he was surrounded by unseen elves.

“Why, though?” Steve wondered. HIs voice was faraway, like he was talking to himself, trying to puzzle out the motives of a crazy person.

“Why does anyone do anything?” Pietro spoke for the first time, and his voice was bitter like willowbark. “He wanted to do it and he had the means to do it, so he did it. No consideration for anyone else.”

“Did he kill someone important to you?” Steve asked. His brow furrowed as he leaned in and winced before holding himself still again.

“Everyone,” Pietro said. “My sister and Bucky are all I have left.”

“That’s awful.” Steve closed his eyes for a moment as though in prayer. “I hope they rest well in the in between.”

PIetro looked suspicious, but said nothing further.

“You’re hurt,” Wanda said to change the subject. “Did you fall before?”

“No.” Steve had the good sense to look embarrassed as he spoke. “I actually got ambushed by a very large beast. Kind of like a wolf, but bigger than I’ve ever seen.”

“Ah. Yes. We call those direwolves.” Wanda pursed her lips, her hands on her hips. “But without armor and the proper weapon, you’d not be alive. So. You fought something else then.”

“It pinned me to the ground and when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t dead. I remember seeing a beautiful, iridescent light between me and the beast.” Steve touched his cheek and arm in turn. “But it got me pretty good. I didn’t have much in the way of first aid. I had to leave most of my supplies with the others.”

“They let you go to the North forest alone?” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. “If you ask me, your people don’t much care for your safety. Perhaps they expected you to fail this quest.”

Now Steve frowned. “No, I offered to go. We couldn’t spare any others. They’re working hard to set up the crops so that we’ll have a harvest for the winter.”

Steve put his hands on the ground and tried to hoist himself up. He gasped out at the pain and almost crumpled onto his injured arm. 

“Here.” Bucky knelt to the ground and took Steve’s arm, unwrapping the bandage. He shook his head as he saw the dark brown of the clay Steve had tried to bind his wound with. “This clay is no good. The waters are rushing through and too much dirt is getting into it. We need to get to the water and wash this out properly.”

“Can you walk?” Pietro asked.

“I can carry him,” Wanda said, waving her hand. 

Even as Steve began to protest, she sent out her Weaving, wrapping it under Steve and lifting him gently into the air. Bucky held back a laugh as Steve’s face went through surprise to amazement. 

“See? It is easy, no?” Wanda smiled, and they all made their way toward the river.

“Thank you, Wanda,” Steve said after Wanda set him down by the bank, and she and Pietro introduced themselves. 

 

*

 

Bucky filled his waterskin in the river and poured the cold water over Steve’s arm, ignoring the way he jumped at the temperature. Steve’s arms were tanned and muscled, like he worked hard for a living. He was still a human, Bucky reminded himself, and set to wiping away the dirt and clay from the direwolf wounds on Steve’s arm.

He tried to ignore the way he couldn’t feel his fingers as he moved them, relying on his sight to ensure he didn’t spill the water. 

Bucky finished washing the wound. “Pietro, can you get me the clay that we need?”

Pietro looked down at his hands, and Bucky knew that he was asking a lot of him, to find the clay without his Weaving to guide him, but they had decided to help Steve, and Steve wouldn’t be any help with disease radiating from his wounds. Pietro nodded and took off his boots and socks before hitching his traveling robes up and wading into the water.

“Thank you.” Steve grimaced his way through the apology as Bucky decided to flush the deep scratch on his arm one more time before moving to the cheek.

Here, Bucky had to take his time. But here, so close to Steve’s face, Bucky wasn’t able to pretend he was helping one of his kind; Steve’s eyes were so very human. 

“Lean forward so the water doesn’t soak into your clothes,” Bucky said, more forcefully than he intended.

Steve obeyed his directions, bending at the waist. The water would still run down his face and to his clothes. 

“Just take your shirt off,” Bucky decided, completely because he was concerned with Steve’s clothing getting wet and not because he wanted to see what he looked like under the shirt. Because if his arm, even torn and mangled by the direwolf, was any indication, Bucky figured he would enjoy the show.

Steve didn’t hesitate, though he did wince when he moved his arm. Bucky wasn’t surprised to see that he was well muscled, his broad shoulders rather intimidating with all that bare skin on display. 

Wanda giggled, and Bucky turned to scowl at her. “I’ve got this situation handled, thank you,” he said. “Why don’t you check on your brother?”

“Ah.” Wanda smiled and her eyes sparkled. Bucky would have appreciated seeing her happy except for then she spoke again. “You wish to be alone with the human?”

Bucky rolled his eyes at her, but she was already working her Weaving to levitate off of the ground, and it was much more entertaining to watch Steve’s mouth fall open as he watched her fly.

“Wow. I had no idea.” Steve followed her path as she moved between trees towards the spot upriver that Pietro had disappeared to. “Peggy never mentioned this in her stories.” He fixed Bucky with a curious tilt of his head. “Can you do that also?”

Bucky was overcome with a sudden urge to put his hand in the running water and Weave an intricate net. Then he looked down at his graying fingers and frowned. “No,” he said briskly, quieting Steve down with a splash of water on his cheek. “I have different Weavings.”

The humans called it magic, Bucky remembered. They didn’t understand. Magic was the tool of jesters, a slight of hand and a turn of words. Weaving was something engrained in the soul of his being.

“That’s amazing.” Steve sat in the dirt with an apologetic smile on his face. “Maybe you can show me some time.”

“It’s not just a trick to entertain children,” Bucky snapped, more harshly than he had planned, but he went with it. He didn’t need a mirror to know his eyes were flashing in rage. “You know, this is one of the reasons we don’t seek humans out. You’re always acting like we’re pets. Like we’re less than--” 

Steve put up his hands, wincing as he moved his arm and trying to keep his palms out. “I’m sorry!” His apology seemed sincere, which infuriated Bucky.

“You can’t just apologize on behalf of every awful thing you’ve done to us and expect me to be ok with it.” Bucky knew, objectively, that he couldn’t  _ blame _ Steve for the things that his ancestors had done centuries ago. But it felt so good to be able to yell at someone, to get the worries and frustrations of the last week out.

“Hey.” Steve closed his eyes for a moment as he faltered. Before Bucky had to move to catch him, Steve seemed to recover. He opened his eyes again, that lovely blue muddled by pain. “I get that you’ve got something against me, but I just met you. And I’m thankful for your help tending to my injuries, but that doesn’t give you the right to yell at me.”

Bucky paused, considering Steve’s words. The damned human was right, and Bucky was hardly in a mood to apologize. “I don’t mean to take out my frustrations on you personally,” he admitted, which was as close to an apology as this  _ Steve _ was about to get, especially while Bucky was fighting for his life and unable to Weave.

Steve nodded as though he understood. 

“Don’t act like you can understand what I’m thinking, either,” Bucky grumbled. “You have no idea the sort of horrors that are in this world. Always sitting safe and mighty in your little cities.”

When Steve shook his head, his tangled hair swung side to side. Bucky was tempted to pull it back in a more efficient style. He refrained.

“I honestly can say I don’t think anyone knew that elves existed. That you were more than tales.”

“Of course we’re more than tales, Steve. This is what sends me into a lake with humans! Your kind--not you personally, see--always assume that stories are just created from some figment of an imagination. That it’s easier to pass along lies and half-truths than it is to tell the story of how you all drove us off of what you started to consider  _ your _ land.”

Steve looked up at Bucky with wide eyes. “We don’t take much land. But I guess I’ve heard people talk about the cities that we used to live in. You must know that it’s not like that anymore.”

“Of course it’s not like that anymore. We left, and hid our tracks and your kind assumed that meant they could pretend they were victorious.”

Steve was quiet for a long time after that, and Bucky alternated between glaring at him to keep it that way and wondering if Pietro was taking too long to get the clay. Had one of the elves working with the  _ human _ found them? Bucky refrained from pacing in the dirt near the river, but he was close to abandoning the human, this Steve, to the mercy of any passing animals to check on Pietro and Wanda.

“Hm. What have we here?”

The sneer of a voice cut through the calm of the forest as someone shifted through the brush. He emerged from between two trees, an easy smile on his lips and wildfire in his eyes. 

Bucky recognized Brock, and he only just managed to keep his surprise from showing. The Fireweaver they had fought had been talented and nimble, which was Brock in two words. Bucky couldn’t hide his anger.

“What  _ ridiculous _ nonsense are you on about?” Bucky asked, hoping that Pietro and Wanda would be nearby, but unwilling to call for them lest he give their location away to the other two that might be hidden in the other trees.

Brock ignored the question, stalking into the clearing with half a glance at Steve. “Oh, I see you were out here begging your own human to your cause. Ha!” Brock spit at the ground towards Steve, and Bucky growled. 

Sure, he didn’t care for Steve, but right now? He cared for Brock less. 

“We took classes together, Brock.” Bucky didn’t want to go down this road, to remember the times they had had together. When had it all gone so wrong?

“We did. Too bad you didn’t pay attention.” Brock reached into the bag he had tied around his waist and smiled, all teeth. “Sorry about your hands, by the way.” He pulled out a flint and made a show of grabbing a stick from the ground. “This will hurt a little more than that.”

Brock moved to set a spark, and the next thing BUcky knew, Steve was stumbling to his feet, drawing his sword and trying to move between the two of them.

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Steve said, his voice clear and completely free from the unsteady quaver of earlier. “But it seems to me like you’re trying to pick on someone who you think can’t defend themselves. Seems odd, really.” 

Steve held his sword steady and Bucky tried not to think about how badly they were going to burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, feel free to comment or leave kudos if you wish! <3 Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

#  5

 

Steve’s head spun as he stood in a low stance, but he kept himself on his feet through some miracle of the gods. The idea that elves had existed alongside humans had brought to mind hundreds of questions, but no time to ask even one. 

He suspected Bucky wouldn’t be inclined to answer any questions in any sort of helpful fashion. But at least Bucky hadn’t been holding a twig in an altogether way too threatening manner. So Steve kept his sword out and pointed at this new elf with short cropped brown hair, so different from Bucky’s long waves of dark hair.

Bucky had called him Brock. Brock’s eyes were lit with fire, glowing in a different way from Bucky’s, and Steve couldn’t stop to think about what that meant. Hoping that he was choosing the right side of the fight, Steve charged at Brock, lifting his sword for a powerful attack. 

Bucky yelled something behind him, and Brock grinned as he tried to strike his flint for a spark. Steve’s heart thudded in his chest when the flicker of a flame from the twig turned into a long, burning line that seemed to extend towards him. 

“Get down!” Bucky all but tackled Steve, knocking him over and taking the wind out of his lungs. 

The air sizzled above them, and Steve was lucky he hadn’t run himself through with his sword. Somewhere, off to the side, Brock laughed. 

“Oh, good, you do protect your little pet.” Brock taunted Bucky.

Steve gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm and stood up again, only to watch the line of fire try to burn its way through the air towards him. 

Was this the kind of magic--Weaving, Bucky had said--that Bucky could do? And why wasn’t he doing it?

“Don’t try to fight him,” Bucky growled from behind him. “Get to the water!” He grabbed Steve’s uninjured arm and pulled. 

Steve crashed after him towards the river, cursing his decision to go north. But he had wanted to protect his people. Peggy. Sam. The kids. Steve had a sudden, desperate thought. Brock seemed to want to hurt Bucky. Maybe he didn’t care about the humans. Maybe he’d leave them alone, especially if he thought they were dead.

“Are you the reason the river flooded?” Steve shouted over his shoulder, and then he broke his arm free of Bucky’s grip and turned to face Brock. “Are you the reason everyone I know is dead?” Even though he was just trying to convince Brock that everyone else was dead as a last resort, in the hopes that Brock wouldn’t go south and find his people, his anger rose just the same. He set his shoulders as though he could face this elf with his odd fire Weaving.

Bucky glared at Steve, as if he couldn’t understand why Steve wasn’t going to the water.

“Yeah, I can take credit for that,” Brock replied with a slow, easy shrug. His grin didn’t waver as he lashed out at them with his Weaving.

Steve dove, protecting his injured arm as the air sizzled around him. The sudden burst of heat was near unbearable. Bucky had said get to the water. Maybe Bucky needed the water to use his Weaving. Steve rolled over on the ground, jumping up and heading towards Bucky, who was on the water’s edge and motioning for him to hurry.

Fire snapped at Steve’s back, singeing the naked skin and sending a searing pain down his shoulder. He cried out as he hit the water, and Bucky pulled him in deeper, dunking him under the cold stream. Steve did his best not to panic, lest he open his mouth underwater, and a moment later, they broke the surface of the water together. 

Brock was bearing down on them from the shore, snarling as he strode closer. “The water isn’t going to help you.” 

Bucky muttered something about Brock being alone, and Steve flinched at the idea that there’d be another elf sending fire at them.

“What do we do?” Steve shivered as the cold of the water assaulted the burn on his back and the cuts on his arm and leg. 

“You have to come out of the water some time,” Brock called from the shore. He twisted his fingers, and his Weaving of fire spun through the air like a wasp looking for a target. 

Steve eyed the flicker of fire warily. “We’re safe here for now?”

Bucky nodded, but it was slow, like he didn’t really believe it. Steve glanced downstream, wondering if he’d see someone else. Where had Pietro and Wanda gone? Steve didn’t know them except for a moment, but he hoped they weren’t hurt.

“You’re a strong swimmer?” Bucky asked. 

It was Steve’s turn to hesitate. Yeah, he’d been in the river and swam, but there’d never been much reason--or water--to draw him to swim recreationally. And that had been in the small, gentle flow of when the river had been much smaller.

Brock reached out, sparking his Weaving a second time, and the burn on Steve’s back seemed to flare again. The water steamed around them.

“You’re going to have to learn or die,” Bucky finally said. “There’s two others with him, and one of them’s a Waterweaver.”

Steve curled instinctively smaller. If this Waterweaver drew from the river like Brock did from his flame, Steve didn’t want to be anywhere near the water. But they couldn’t leave its relative safety with Brock nearby. He growled his frustration.

“Great.” Bucky nodded downstream. “Channel your anger into swimming. Focus on staying above the water and let the current take you.”

Bucky took off down the water like he was part fish, and Steve stared for a moment before trying to emulate the way he kicked his legs out and moved his arms. They didn’t go to the middle of the river, just far enough that they were mostly under the water. 

“Where are you going to go?” Brock taunted them as he moved between the trees, tracking them from the banks, and Steve was reminded of the awful direwolf that had stalked him through the forest.

His arm protested as he swam, aching more with every stroke.

“Blood and damnation.” He spat out a mouthful of water in frustration as he remembered that his pack was still upstream. His already useless sword was at his hip, soaking wet in its scabbard. His pants had soaked through, the weight of the water adding to the discomfort. He was mildly thankful Bucky had asked him to take off his shirt earlier.

The Fireweaving flew between two trees, cracking as it sizzled through the air, the very tip of the Weaving steaming when a splash of water caught it.

Steve got an idea.

He swam closer to the shore and stood in the knee deep current, water streaming down his chest. 

Bucky spun in the water to stare at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Can’t swim as well as you. Can’t go down without a fight.” Steve unsheathed his sword, hoping that his observations were correct, that the Weaving still behaved liked  _ fire _ .

And Steve was soaking wet, the best protection he’d have.

Brock, grinning in delight, broke through the underbrush and whipped his Weaving at Steve. Steve swung his blade through the river, drawing up a trail of water behind it, and cut at the Weaving. It steamed and sputtered and the end went out without touching Steve.

Brock’s grin dropped faster than the river had flooded. 

“You humans--you, personally!--have no regard for your lives!” Bucky exclaimed as he splashed up next to Steve. 

Bucky put his hand in the water before grimacing and pulling it out like he’d been hurt. Steve didn’t have time to think about it; Brock sent his Weaving out again like a long whip, moving faster to avoid Steve’s blade. 

Steve was a half second too slow, and couldn’t extinguish the tip of the Weaving. It hit his waist, steaming up against the soaked pants and unable to singe through the cloth. Steve refrained from whooping in excitement. Finally, something he could fight back against.

Ducking down in the water to ensure he was as soaked through as could be, Steve surged out of the water, rushing up the dirt to confront Brock. Bucky shouted something else behind him, but he kept his attention on the whirling line of fire. His body protested every movement, but the pain was dull and far away, so he pushed through. He could hurt later.

“Pierce said the humans were stupid,” Brock said with his smirk, but his eyes widened as Steve kept rushing forward.

Steve whipped his sword around, and a soft sheen of water sprayed in its arc. He was close enough to see the brown glow of Brock’s eyes as he dodged to the side to avoid the fire. Steam rose from his skin where it had passed near, but then Steve was reaching with his sword and Brock was forced to jump back, pulling his Weaving with him.

Steve charged again with a yell, trying to focus on where Brock’s Weaving sparked into existence from just beyond his hand, the heat blue-white but not burning the skin. Brock jumped back, avoiding roots and sticks with ease, but Steve was only a step behind, matching every move.

From back on the banks, Bucky was shouting, something about “keep him moving.”

Grinning, Steve swung his sword. He almost caught Brock’s sleeve, would have  _ had _ him if he had his greatsword, and Brock swore as he darted to the side, trying to lose Steve. Steve crashed through the brush as he followed. He panted, drawing in lungfuls of air and trying to keep going despite the blooming ache in every bit of his body.

A branch snapped and Steve flung himself back as a giant direwolf burst out from behind a tree. The direwolf growled and advanced on Brock, ignoring Steve completely. Steve watched as Brock kept backing away.

Bucky showed up at his shoulder a moment later. “What is a charmed direwolf doing this far north?” His words didn’t seem to be for Steve, and anyway, Steve had no answer.

“The wolf isn’t going to turn on us?” Steve asked instead, gripping his sword as water dripped off of his clothes onto the dirt beneath them.

Steve couldn’t help but notice that Bucky’s clothes were just as wet, the cloth clinging to his body and highlighting the curve of his back. The threat of the direwolf and Brock won for attention, and Steve turned back towards Brock.

Brock slipped between two trees, keeping his balance, but unable to throw out his Weaving at the wolf. The direwolf snapped at Brock.

“No, it’s charmed,” Bucky repeated, as if that made an inkling of difference to Steve.

“Alright. Charmed.” Steve watched the strange procession of an elf being chased by a direwolf.

They stood next to each other, soaking wet, and Steve wavered on his feet before collapsing to the ground.

“Gods protect us, what are you doing?” Bucky grumbled as he crouched down to Steve’s level.

Steve’s head swam until he rearranged himself on the ground in a slightly more dignified heap. Every goddamned injury in his body had decided to vie for his attention. “Give me a moment,” he managed, pushing Bucky away.

Forcing himself not to vomit the nothing in his stomach, Steve pressed his hands against the ground and managed a sitting position. 

“You look like you’re dying.” Bucky’s voice floated down to him with a hint of laughter dancing on the edges.

Steve looked up towards the sky. He couldn’t see through the leaves, but sun streamed down and warmed his face until the world spun around him. He had to close his eyes. “Might be.”

Bucky turned to where Brock and the direwolf had disappeared deeper in the forest. “We need to move in case he circles back around.”

Steve lifted an eyebrow and even that hurt. He ran through every pain, sorting it into  _ needs attention now _ and  _ can wait a few more hours. _ Far too many aches brushed along the border of the first category. With a grunt, he struggled to his feet.

“There’s no way you’re going to keep moving for more than a minute.” Bucky was frowning at him. Concerned? No, he had seemed like he was going to ditch Steve the first chance he got. But he hadn’t. Yet.

Gritting his teeth against the wave of pain, Steve stood up and stepped forward. It was like every pain he had ignored when he attacked Brock had came back with a vengeance. It took his breath away, and he stumbled up against a tree, pressing most of his weight against the rough bark.

“You guys look like you’ve been having fun.” 

Steve looked over to see Wanda gliding through the trees on her near invisible Airweaving. Now that he’d seen Brock Weave fire, Steve could just pick out the distortion of the air underneath her feet. She was holding Steve’s pack, and Pietro walked behind her, his hands jammed in the pockets of his pants. 

“Brock surprised us,” Bucky said as he walked towards Wanda. “Some beastmaster sent their direwolf on him, so we’ve got some time, but-”

Pietro nodded, his face strung tight. “We need to move.” He nodded towards Wanda. “We brought the clay.”

“He’s gonna need all of it.” Bucky said something quieter that Steve couldn’t make out as Wanda handed him the block of clay. 

Steve noticed that Bucky handled the clay carefully, watching his hands as he took it from Wanda and never letting it out of his sight. 

He also noticed that Wanda’s hands weren’t gray like Bucky’s. He closed his eyes again, trying to recall Brock’s hands. Had they been gray? His back still stung from the sharp pain of the burn, the sensation floating on top of every other pain from his cheek down to his sore feet.

Footsteps fell next to him, and Steve opened his eyes to see Bucky staring at him. 

“Stop trying to pretend like you can stand and lie down.” Bucky squatted down and brushed some twigs and leaves out of the way, clearing a little space for Steve.

Steve tried not to sigh in relief as he sank from the tree to the ground, lying on his side to avoid putting pressure on the burn on his back. He had to close his eyes against the heat of the sunlight still streaming through the treetops. Bucky grumbled something and then something soft and dark covered Steve’s eyes. He blinked and saw the back of a large leaf.

“Thanks,” he muttered, closing his eyes again.

“Yeah.”

Steve listened to Bucky work the clay for a minute, the wet slap of it between his hands. The others talked around him like he wasn’t there.

Wanda’s voice was steady. “Where are we going to go?”

“There’s a beastmaster around, so there’s bound to be fairies.” That was Pietro. He was farther away than Wanda, his voice already quiet, and it dropped lower at the end of his sentence, leaving an uncomfortable silence.

Steve flinched when Bucky put the first bit of clay on the wound of his arm. His sudden “ouch!” broke the lull in the conversation

“It’s gonna sting for a moment,” Bucky agreed, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. His next words were clearly not for Steve. “I don’t want to go to the fairies if we can avoid it. We’ve got nothing to bargain.”

Steve drifted in and out for a moment, focusing on the dirt against his side, the noise of the birds flittering in and out among the trees.

Rough fabric pressed up against his arm next, and Bucky took a moment to add, “I don’t have any actual bandages either.”

Steve nodded a little, and the leaf fluttered from his face. The sun poked through his eyelids again and he closed them tighter. Bucky put the leaf back over his eyes.

“It’s not like we can ask the humans for help.” Wanda laughed, but it was tinged with sadness. 

“So there’s no one.” Pietro didn’t sound convinced. “You can’t think of anyone, Bucky?”

“No. I can’t. Burn next,” was Steve’s only warning before Bucky added a pat of clay to his back, and Steve hissed through clenched teeth. The clay was cold against the injury, but it stung like many tiny insects for a long minute before easing off into a dull thrum of pain.

Bucky tended to his cheek next, smearing clay on the jagged edges of the cut. It was agony, sending bright pain blooming across his face and settling in his bones. Steve couldn’t help the tears that welled and dripped down his cheek. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out as the stinging sensation faded into something more manageable. 

Wanda said something Steve couldn’t hear, and then added, “Without the elders, we need to go to the fae.”

“It’s not like they’re going to know what to do about this,” Pietro said, his voice bordering on anger, but Steve couldn’t look to see his body language.

“I’m just going to cut the ripped fabric here.” Bucky touched Steve’s thigh before lifting the torn piece of his pants and shearing it off. Bucky must’ve gotten a knife from somewhere. Maybe he carried one. 

It wouldn’t have helped against Brock. The remembrance of their fight sent a sickening chill down Steve’s back.

“We need to go-” Steve began, but then Bucky put the cool clay on his leg, and Steve gasped. 

He’d been able to ignore the injury when they were fighting, but now his whole leg went limp and useless as white sparks of pain shot across his closed eyes. Walking was going to be impossible. Steve swallowed back the fear that rose in his throat; would they just leave him? It didn’t make sense to tend to his wounds and leave him, so Steve grit his teeth and waited for the horrible stabbing to calm into a faint echo of pain.

“Chew this,” Bucky instructed, shoving something fibrous and bitter between Steve’s lips. “Don’t swallow.”

Steve obliged, if only because if they wanted him dead, there were easier ways than poisoning him.

“But if we don’t have anywhere to go, then we might as well march ourselves back to the palace and wait to die.” Wanda was matter-of-fact, but the way the wind shifted around her had a breeze floating past Steve’s face. 

“No one is going to know what to do. No one’s ever had to fix a  _ broken _ Weaving!” Pietro’s voice broke, just for a second, at the end of his sentence. Bucky tensed next to Steve, and then Pietro added, “Go off it, Bucky. If Steve hasn’t figured out what you’re not using a Weaving yet, he’s even less bright than you thought.”

A tentative relief from his pain started at the edge of Steve’s awareness and he spit out the bitter root. Moving each bit of his body as slowly as he could, Steve rearranged himself into a sitting position without retching. 

The idea of a broken Weaving didn’t quite make sense, but with the pain receding, he was at least about to form coherent thoughts again. Almost. “Whenever I have an unanswerable question, I go to Peggy.”

“Who’s Peggy?” Bucky asked, and Wanda laughed.

“She’s, uh, she’s just another one of me. Of us. Human. I mean.” Steve paused. “She’s very knowledgeable. About elves.”

“She’s a human.” Bucky’s reply was flat and he turned away from Steve.

“It’s not as though we have other options.” Wanda sent out her Weaving towards Steve and met his eyes with a smile. “This might tickle.”

Wanda’s Weaving formed an airy basket beneath Steve, forcing him up off the ground by about an inch. He hesitated before touching it. The Weaving was strong underneath him. Curious, he forced his fingers between the stands and tried to pry it apart, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Hey! Not so rough,” Wanda admonished. “I’m trying to help you.”

“The fae or this ‘all-knowing’ Peggy?” Pietro aimed his question at Bucky. “Which is it going to be?”

“Spare us the ‘neither’ that I know you’re dying to say,” Wanda added. “If you don’t want to deal with the fae, it’s going to be the humans.” Wanda leveled a stare at Bucky that had Steve ready to take a step back if he wasn’t certain that would set his head spinning again. 

With a grimace like he’d been forced to eat animal dung, Bucky sighed. “I’m not messing with the fae again unless Odin himself is dragging me to my death.” He turned and met Steve’s eyes, something unreadable in the soft gray glow. “We’ll follow you.”

Steve tried to imagine what Sam would say when he showed up with his new friends. He could picture Peggy greeting them like old friends, despite the stories she told. He nodded, slowly, his mind foggy at the edges from whatever Bucky had given him to chew. But at least the pain was manageable.

He started to stand up, putting weight on his foot and swaying when he didn’t touch the ground. Wanda still had her Weaving active underneath him.

“I can walk,” he attempted. 

Wanda’s smile was pleasant, but the corners of her eyes were drawn. “We’re in this together now, Steve. Let me help you so you can help us. You have no idea what forces are working against us right now.”

Steve wavered and took a deep breath. He nodded. “You’re right. We need to follow the river back. It should be, uh, four days away. I think.”

Bucky grabbed Steve’s pack from Wanda and hoisted it on his back, ignoring Steve’s protest to let him carry his own bag. They traveled in relative silence for awhile, making their way through brush and wet dirt where it had rained earlier in the day. Steve floated along with them on Wanda’s Weaving, and he watched her for signs of tiring.

“I can do this all day.” Wanda winked at him when she noticed him studying her hands. “There’s air all around us. All I have to do is give it a little encouragement.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Pietro grumbled. “Wanda is the strongest Airweaver our people have ever known.”

Wanda shushed Pietro. “Listen.” 

Steve glanced around, expecting a lash of fire to dart out from between the trees or a direwolf to charge. The birds were still singing, though quieter than usual.

“It’s going to rain tonight,” she said as she closed her eyes for a moment.    
  
The Weaving beneath Steve eased for a moment, letting him settle on the ground. Steve kept an eye on the way the air reflected strangely as Wanda probed up into the sky with her Weaving.

Wanda opened her eyes and frowned. “It’s going to be a big storm. Steve, did you have to take shelter along the way?” 

Steve shook his head. “No.” Whatever he’d chewed on was starting to fade, and his leg burned.

Pietro growled as he put one of his gray streaked hands to the ground and closed his eyes. After a moment, he got up and stalked into the forest, leaving the others to scramble after him. 

Wanda swept her hand down and Steve rose up from the ground again.

“Thank you,” he said, his head starting to throb. “Why’s he so upset? Is the storm going to be that bad?”

For some reason, that had Bucky glaring at Steve and Wanda sighed. “His Weaving broke when we were attacked earlier. As an Earthweaver, he would have been able to send out his Weaving and maybe scout out a place for a shelter. Now, though?” She shook her head. 

Steve wanted to nod, but his head was too heavy. “Must be awful,” he managed with a weak grimace. “Like they took a part of him and didn’t even leave a wound that could be healed.”

From the corner of his eye, Steve saw Bucky nod. 

They traveled in relative silence, working through the forest as fast as Pietro and Bucky could walk and as fast as Wanda could drag Steve along. Despite the buffer of air, Steve still grunted with every sudden movement, firey pain spreading down his leg, his arm, his face. 

Midafternoon, they stopped briefly to eat. Bucky and Wanda produced hard biscuits from their bags and Steve gnawed at one, his eyes drooping.

“I had a net for fish,” Steve mumbled, half-asleep. “M’leg hurts.”

Above him, Wanda said something about giving him more willowbark, and Bucky shook his head. 

“...only got a bit… let him sleep it off…” 

Sleep sounded like a great idea, but Steve’s chest was heavy, like if he fell asleep, he might not wake up. A flash of panic gave him a burst of energy. “Just keep going south and you’ll find everyone,” he said, right before he closed his eyes and gave into the pain.


	6. Chapter 6

#  6

 

“Should we leave him?” Bucky asked. “I don’t want you exhausted from dragging him around when Brock shows up again.”

Wanda shook her head. Clouds were starting to crowd out the setting sun, and she considered Steve’s sleeping form as they picked their way through the endless trees and followed the river south. “He’s moving much less now. It’s actually made it quite easy.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he smiled just the same until a sharp wind cut across the small clearing they’d just stepped into. “You weren’t lying about that storm.” When Wanda raised her eyebrow at him, he put his hands up. “I was just hopeful you were trying to encourage us to keep moving.”

“If a broken Weaving and people trying to kill us wasn’t going to get you moving, I doubt a storm would do little more to motivate you,” Wanda deadpanned. 

Just in front of them, Pietro scanned through the trees. “Keep any hidden shelters here, Bucky?” 

“You know I’ve never gone beyond the first bend of the river,” Bucky said, a hint of frustration laced in his voice. “Why would I have? There’s humans in the south. ‘We have everything we need on the Palace grounds.’”

The wind howled through again, and Bucky shivered, glancing at Steve. He hadn’t bothered to put his shirt back on after tending to his wounds. Now that the sun was firmly behind clouds and the wind picking up, Steve had started to shake from the cold.

Bucky opened Steve’s pack and grabbed out a blanket, tossing it over his sleeping form. “That’ll have to do for now.” In the distance, they heard a crack of thunder. “We need to get out of the open. Farther into the forest.”

Pietro and Wanda nodded, and they shifted their path to bring them deeper into the woods. The thicker underbrush had Wanda pausing as she adjusted her Weaving to guide Steve through. Pietro glanced at Bucky before he helped lift Steve’s shoulders to get him past some brambles. 

Thunder rumbled, louder than before. After about a minute, the sky flashed brightly, lighting up the dark spaces around them. 

Everything was so much darker after that. Rain began to fall, giant drops that filtered through the leaves, chilling cold when they splashed over Bucky’s head and arms, dripping down his back. 

Their only light source was Wanda’s Weaving, and it was only by chance that they managed to find a thicket of closely packed trees, their needled branches overlapping to form the closest to a shelter they’d seen yet. 

“This’ll have to do,” Bucky shouted over the groan of the wind. He pushed aside a few of the limbs so that Pietro could climb under and help Wanda guide Steve next to them. 

The ground was cold, and Bucky worked quickly to gather fallen pine needles and spread them over the dirt, anything to help buffer their bodies from the plummeting temperatures. Thankfully, under the trees, it was drier.

“Now we just hope you didn’t pick the tallest trees for us to hide under,” Pietro said with a wry grin. He reached into his own bag to pull out his traveling cloak, and wrapped himself with a sigh of temporary relief at the warmth. 

Bucky’s wet hair was slicked uncomfortably to his face, and he pushed it behind his ears as best he could. Thunder boomed, and the lightning lit everything, even their space under the trees.

Wanda wrapped her cloak around herself. Her hair was still quite dry. “Thanks for helping with Steve,” she told Pietro, as she sent a wisp of her Weaving through the branches, just enough light for them to see. 

“I wouldn’t be a good brother if I didn’t help you on occasion.”

Bucky considered Steve, who was beginning to stir on the ground next to him. Steve groaned as he twisted to his side.

Steve’s groan shifted into a yelp when he put pressure on his arm. Bucky grumbled, but he grabbed Steve by the shoulders and helped hoist him into a sitting position, propped up against the trunk of the tree. 

It was crowded in the space, the branches invading between them. Steve opened his eyes and tried to focus on Bucky.

“You ought to go back to sleep,” Bucky started to say, his words cut off by another great crack of thunder.

Steve flinched, his wariness settled deep in the lines of his face. Caked mud from his cheek crumbled down to the ground. 

“We’re staying here until the storm is over.” Bucky gestured to Wanda and Pietro, who were talking to each other. The conversation just a few feet away was drowned out by the roar of the rain. “Don’t forget to thank them for not leaving you to the elements when you passed out.”

Steve opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t say anything. Lightning flashed and he closed his eyes. Bucky suspected Steve was fighting against a wave of nausea. He sighed and rummaged in his bag, coming up with a chew of willowbark. He handed it to Steve.

Gratitude broke through Steve’s pain-clouded eyes even as he wrinkled his nose at the bitter taste. The pounding of rain, the roll of thunder, and the too-frequent flashes of lightning had everyone tense.

A gust of wind swept under the branches and rustled the pine needles, dumping a splatter of rain drops on them. Bucky pulled his cloak tighter. Something grabbed at his cloak; Steve had reached over and was trying to bring Bucky closer.

Steve shivered violently under his blanket and opened his mouth to speak, but his words were slurred and his teeth clacked together.

Bucky heaved a sigh as he shifted on the pine needles beneath them, ducking his head around a branch so that he could pull Steve closer. 

There was another burst of thunder, and then Steve leaned his head back to look up at Bucky. “Thank you,” he said before pressing against Bucky, desperate for something, anything, to help him warm up.

That’s what Bucky was going to tell himself. He carefully avoided taking in Steve’s matted blond hair and skinned tanned from being outside, the lightest smattering of freckles at his temples. Bucky was warm, too warm. 

Thank Odin that Steve was cold and shaking and helping alleviate that problem.

Bucky scowled at the top of Steve’s head. Steve was also apparently the source of the overheating problem.

It was too loud to worry about conversation, so Bucky let his mind wander. He wrapped an arm loosely around Steve’s shoulder and thought about how the elders had described humans. Shorter and stockier, like they were designed to be a step above animals.

Maybe Steve was an anomaly. He was just as tall as Bucky, and sturdy; he was able to fight and, even injured, seemed to move with grace and beauty.

Bucky needed to stop thinking about how Steve moved. Where had these damnable thoughts come from anyhow?

The rain lulled, and Bucky heard a soft snore. He looked down and realized Steve had fallen asleep against his shoulder. Bucky glanced over to Wanda and Pietro. They had done their best to make little pallets of needles on the driest part of the dirt under the tree. He shrugged at the questioning look on Wanda’s face.

Thunder rumbled, low and long and loud, and Bucky sighed. It wasn’t like they were going to be able to go anywhere in the rain. He called a goodnight to Wanda and Pietro, and did his best to get comfortable against the trunk of the tree, and hoped to Thor that the lightning wouldn’t strike nearby.

His gray-streaked, numb hands were the last thing he saw before Wanda dismissed her Weaving and left them in the dark.

The rain poured down.

 

*

 

Bucky’s back ached when he woke up. He pushed back against the tree trunk and tried to wiggle his toes that had gone numb in his shoes. Sometime during the night, Steve had slid down to sleep in his lap and wrapped his arm around Bucky’s waist. Bucky frowned as he flexed his feet back and forth. 

Unlike his fingers, sensation spread in the tips of his toes, a fuzziness that sharpened for a moment before settling into something normal.

Bucky glared at his hands. At least the gray hadn’t traveled any farther up his wrists. 

Steve stirred and muttered on Bucky’s legs, his breath warm through the fabric of Bucky’s pants, and Bucky was suddenly very aware of the need to move Steve before his morning excitement became acquainted with Steve’s face.

_ That _ thought had Bucky squirming even more. He tapped Steve on the non-injured shoulder. “Time to get up,” he announced, his voice strangely loud in the quiet morning after the storm.

Wanda yawned, avoiding branches as she stretched her arms up. “Another morning,” she said with a small smile. “The world hasn’t ended yet.”

Steve flinched from pain as he woke up. He seemed to realize where he was lying and sat up with a grunt. 

“Time still isn’t on our side.” Pietro’s voice cut through from where he’d curled under a low branch. “We need to get moving.”

“How are you feeling this morning, Steve?” Wanda asked. 

Steve touched his arm and winced. “Better.” He blinked a few times and, noticing how close he still was to Bucky, shifted away in the dirt.

Bucky was surprised how much colder the morning air was without Steve right next to him. He wrapped his cloak around himself.

“Thank you for helping me along yesterday.” Steve thanked Wanda as he moved his body bit by bit, as though afraid he’d fall apart if he moved too fast. 

“Pietro’s right.” Bucky shook off the sudden desire to pull Steve closer, to share his body heat a little longer, and shuffled away from the tree trunk towards the forest. “We need to get back to it.”

Bucky stepped out from under the tree and stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Pietro asked, hunched over a half step behind Bucky to avoid the long branch. “Oh.”

A few trees away, a direwolf sat, its eyes following their every movement.

Bucky took a slow breath. It wasn’t like he could hide back under the tree; the wolf had been waiting.

Wanda popped up next to Bucky, quieter than he’d thought possible. “Oh.” She echoed her brother.

Still under the tree, Steve must have been struggling to stand without hitting a branch. Bucky hissed at him to stay put before stepping out in full view of the direwolf.

It was impossible to say for sure, but Bucky was almost positive it was the one who’d ran off Rumlow last night.

With a quick word of prayer up to Odin that the wolf wouldn’t rip him apart, Bucky took another step forward. “Beastmaster! Show yourself.”

A shimmer like a spot of dew moving too fast caught his eye, and a moment later, Bucky found himself staring at the iridescent form of a fairy, flying just a few feet from his face.

“You try to avoid the fae, the fae finds you,” Pietro muttered.

The fairy seemed pleased. His grin was unmistakable. “Would you look at that! I haven’t seen one of your type my whole life.”

“You look to be a child,” Bucky said. He needed to not say the first words that entered his mouth. 

Thankfully, the fairy laughed. “You got me. What gave it away?” He ran a hand down his cheek. “My soft, supple skin? The glow of my wings, not yet withered in age?”

“For Loki’s sake, Clint.” A second fairy flew into view. “Out of all the moments we have, we ought to take this one seriously.”

“Right as always, Nat,” Clint said with a wink. He nodded towards the direwolf. “Saw you admiring my ride.” His demeanor went stern. “Tell me about the elf I chased away from you and your friend last night. I might not be old enough to have seen one of you in person, but I know the histories. I’ve never heard tales of fighting amongst yourselves.”

Bucky nodded. “Let’s talk over breakfast, because we have to keep moving.”

“I mean, you don’t have to worry about that elf any time soon,” Clint said with another cheery grin. “Does that mean there are others to worry about?”

“Yes.” Wanda answered the question as she emerged from under the tree. “Two more. Another elf and a human.”

The second fairy, Nat, narrowed her eyes as though she could see through Bucky to Steve behind him. “The human traveling with you?”

“No.” Bucky surprised them all with how fast he denied her accusation. For Odin’s sake, he’d only known Steve for one damnable day. Bucky needed a good stretch of time away from everyone to clear his head.

They didn’t have time for that. He was just going to have to sort out his odd feelings for Steve later. 

The second fairy introduced herself as Natasha and helped Pietro and Wanda round up some berries and nuts while Bucky helped Steve out into the forest.

When Steve came out from the tree, the direwolf rose, clearing the space between them in three giant bounds. Bucky’s stomach dropped at the thought of the giant wolf finishing what it had started. He tried to step between Steve and the direwolf even though he had no way to defend himself, let alone Steve. The direwolf stopped a half-inch from Steve’s face.

It licked Steve’s cheek.

Clint laughed. “Do you not trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone who sends up offerings to Loki,” Bucky said evenly.

Clint pointed to Steve. “She likes him.”

“Then why did she try to tear him to shreds?”

“She’s still licking me,” Steve managed from behind them.

Bucky’s laugh wasn’t long or loud, but it was still a burst of sunshine from behind a cloud, warming him inside for a good moment before fading away.

“The flood,” Clint explained as he came to rest on her shaggy back. “She’s been separated from her pack, and their hunting grounds are a mess. She was hungry, yes, and incensed.”

Bucky nodded. “The flood affected you also?”

“Yes. Our homes were destroyed and more than a few wee little fae had to learn how to fly sooner than intended, but we can rebuild.” Clint met Bucky’s eyes, and Bucky looked away.

“Steve. Don’t make eye contact with him, alright?”

Clint laughed again. “I’m a  _ beast _ master. Not an elfmaster, not a humanmaster. It’s quite alright to look.” 

Natasha, Pietro, and Wanda returned, their arms full of food. They sat on the dew-dropped grass and leaves in between the tightly packed trees and ate.

“These wounds are well dressed,” Natasha said after a minute. She flew around Steve once, and Steve followed her path warily. “How do you feel?”

Steve tried a tentative stretch and pain flashed across his face before he set his jaw. “Much better.”

“Don’t lie,” Bucky muttered. He grinned when Steve regarded him with a half raised eyebrow. “Yeah, you’re not as stoic as you try to be.”

“I do feel much better, but not great,” Steve amended. 

Natasha nodded and sat on the ground, looking up at them. “So what happened to your lands, Bucky?”

The way she said his name made Bucky flinch. “I ought to tell you to call me James.”

“Who the hell is James?” Pietro’s laugh was gone in a moment, a drop of joy that had the beginning of a smile tugging on Bucky’s lips.

“The human destroyed our palace. Killed…” Wanda stopped speaking before her voice could break. She attempted a smile to ward away the tears. It fluttered away. “They killed everyone.”

Steve bowed his head. “Why, though?” 

“Why do humans do anything?” Bucky snapped. “So content to drive us away and then sit and wonder  _ why _ someone would try to finish the job.”

“It’s not exactly like I can ask someone who was alive back then,” Steve said. “I’m incredibly sorry that you’re suffering from this loss. We still need to work together, don’t we?”

Pietro and Wanda were nodding, and Clint and Natasha followed Steve’s gaze to Bucky. 

Under scrutiny again. Funny how familiar it felt. Bucky sighed. “I don’t know why any of this is happening.” He stared at his hands as he ate, still unable to tell where they were without physically looking at them. “They’ve got very powerful magic, so if I had to guess, they’re probably unable to leave well enough alone.”

“You think he’s after the Horn of Summoning,” Clint said. His tiny shrug bothered Bucky. “Isn’t everyone, really?”

“I don’t chase after tall tales.” Bucky glanced around the trees, still expecting an attack. 

“But he might,” Wanda said. “Why else would he go after us?”

“It’s not real, is it?” Steve asked. “Peggy’s mentioned it before, and-” Steve stopped talking.

“And you thought the elves were just a story too?” Bucky couldn’t help throwing the dig towards Steve. “We can talk once we get moving.”

“Where are you heading?” Natasha asked, glancing at Steve again. “He’s in no condition to travel.”

“Unless you two can fix broken Weavings, we’re searching out the rest of Steve’s town.” Wanda smiled. “And he’s been traveling in comfort thanks to me.”

With a nod, Natasha flitted up into the air. “Good. Let me help a little, too.”

Bucky was happy to see that Steve wasn’t completely trusting. He met Bucky’s eyes, like he trusted  _ Bucky _ to help him make the right decision for him. So, not completely trusting of just anyone, but still also an idiot. Bucky returned the glance with a shrug. He pointedly turned away.

He had to pretend like he didn’t care, but in truth, he wanted to march right up to Steve and stay next to him the entire time Natasha was there. Humans.

Bucky sighed, as Natasha went on about some sap from some tree.

“Oh! You had us collect some, didn’t you?” Wanda’s laugh was genuine, though it was rough around the edges, and Bucky turned to look. “I should have known. Syrup. Like we were going to make sweets right now.”

“The glenbranch pine sap is a powerful magic of its own,” Natasha said, her lips set in a grim line as she wiped away the packed mud under the bandages and considered Steve’s injuries. “It might cure whatever ailment has set in your friend’s hands.”

Bucky’s ears perked up at that. 

“We’ve only got this little vial,” Pietro said, a sudden longing in his voice. “What is it, three drops?”

Natasha nodded, her gaze on Steve’s leg. “Leg first, I suppose, so you can walk.”

“You’re helping me,” Steve said slowly. “Why?”

Natasha glanced at Clint for a fraction of a moment before shrugging as though she did this all of the time. “Can’t you feel the changes in the earth? It’s not just the flood. Whatever this elfkiller wants, he’s ready to set off ancient magics to get it.”

“So we’re going to help each other out and sort it all out afterwards?” Steve asked. “Well, nevermind then. I’d love to be able to walk on my own. Scott would have a fit if he knew what I’ve been up to with these injuries.”

“Who’s Scott?” Bucky asked, the damnable words leaving his mouth before he could help himself. He answered his question, the important one. Not the subtext of what Scott could be to Steve. “Another human.”

Bucky just needed Steve’s leg healed so that Steve could get up and leave them. Natasha uncorked the vial and let a single drop of the viscous sap fall onto Steve’s leg. 

Steve grunted, looking down in surprise as the spot where the sap hit began to heal, the skin closing up in a pale pink scab. It didn’t reach all the way down, so the scab ended abruptly at torn skin, but in a much smaller spot. Steve tested weight on his leg, and looked at Natasha, his eyebrows raised.

“That’s incredible.”

“It comes with a price,” Natasha said with a sad smile. “But three drops ought to be without harm.”

The heat of Bucky’s anger rose. Of course she wouldn’t tell Steve about the catch before showing him what it could do. But that was just as much Steve’s fault for not asking. Even if he’d never dealt with the fae before, hadn’t this all-knowing Peggy taught him anything about interacting with them?

“What do you mean, a price?” Steve asked, drawing back. In three steps, he put himself back against a tree. 

“Be calm,” Natasha soothed, as though she hadn’t been the one to upset him. “If you use too much of it, it gets into the blood. Too much in the blood, then the blood can’t flow.” She grinned, as though she’d used it for exactly that purpose before.

Bucky shook his head. She was too young to have done anything like that. The iridescent glow of her wings was bright, but the colors weren’t as developed as they would be in another couple of decades. He glanced at Steve again, who was touching his leg as though it would stop working at a moment’s notice.

“You should be fine for two more drops.” Natasha tilted her head towards Steve’s arm and face.

Steve set his jaw. “Ok.”

Natasha repeated the process while everyone else gathered as much nearby food as they could. When they began to walk again, Steve walked with them to lead the way, setting the fastest pace he could manage for their strange little group. Bucky was only a step behind.


	7. Chapter 7

 

#  7

 

Steve had a lot to consider as they walked over the next couple of days. The trees were thick through the stretch they were navigating, forcing them to go one by one through the heavy growth. Steve could only imagine how they looked; him leading the group with three elves following. Clint and Natasha took turns flying around them and sitting on the direwolf, who brought up the rear. 

Steve touched his cheek, still surprised to feel smooth, unbroken skin. The distinct lack of pain was invigorating, if he had to be honest. Natasha’s words of the thick sap thickening his blood had been worrying, but now he was able to set a pace almost as quick as when he had set out on his journey. 

What was Peggy going to say when he showed up like this? 

Steve was struck with a sudden thought--what if their little settlement had been attacked or something else had gone wrong? He shoved that idea to the side. Sam and Scott would have worked hard to protect everyone.

Perhaps the question wasn’t what Peggy would say, but rather what Steve would say to her. Had it really been just over a week since he’d left?

Though the group was silent as they traveled, the forest was just as alive as ever, birds calling and squirrels skittering through the treetops. More than one fish jumped in the too-large river.

Despite the flooded river, it was starting to feel like home again. Even the sun sparkling from above the leaves seemed more inviting, closer to what Steve remembered. The leaves were greener, the bark of the trees textured and rich. 

And, he thought to himself, Natasha and Clint had patrolled the forest around them and seemed relatively sure that they weren’t being followed. The last thing he wanted to do was to bring the threat to his people.

The trees thinned out a bit and they walked close to the bank of the river for a long while. The sun shifted overhead, just beginning its descent towards the horizon. 

Bucky followed closely, his foot landing where Steve’s had left. Bucky hadn’t spoke much over the last day, and whenever Steve looked back at him, he seemed to be staring straight ahead, like he could see Peggy and the children in the distance.

“Will the children be safe from the wolf?” Steve asked the next time Clint flew up to the head of the group.

“Sure, why not?” Clint smiled back at his wolf. “She’s a good one. I think I’m going to call her Lucky.”

“That’s a horrible name for a wolf.” Natasha’s response came without pause, and her eyes sparkled almost as brilliantly as her wings. 

Steve was pretty sure Clint was grinning as he flew back to check on Lucky.

“Smoke in the distance. We’re close,” Bucky muttered, a good minute before Steve saw it, and Steve turned to him to nod.

Bucky was staring forward again. In the sun’s glow, his eyes didn’t seem as bright as they had been in the dark of the storm. When he closed his eyes for a moment, Steve still remembered how he had looked up in a half-daze, feverish bout of pain under the cover of the pine tree and seeing Bucky looking down at him with an expression of curiosity and what had seemed like sadness.

There was none of that in his expression now as Bucky looked past him towards the flames. Steve had thought briefly about going ahead to share his story first before bringing everyone into the camp, but decided that ultimately, not even Sam would believe him until he saw everything Steve had seen.

“Steve?” The voice was tentative, but full of excitement and joy.

Steve looked over to see Scott waving from across the way, a huge grin on his face. 

“Odin be damned, you came back!” Even from the distance, Scott’s tilted head and open-mouthed stare couldn’t be missed. “And you found some friends.” A pause. “They are friends, right?”

“Yeah. Friends.” A sudden sense of relief broke over Steve like an echo of the flood. Scott was up and walking, and he was smiling. Everyone had to be ok. Scott wouldn’t be smiling if something was wrong with their settlement.

The relief was chased by the cold realization that Steve was bringing nothing but problems to them.

He couldn’t change that now. “They are,” he confirmed, as much for himself as for Scott. “Is Peggy around?”

“She’s at the fire,” Scott said. He met them halfway and waved for everyone to follow him. “Wow. I’m sorry. I mean, hello. Everyone. And a wolf.” Scott glanced from the wolf to Bucky to Wanda to Pietro to Clint and Natasha before his eyes landed on the direwolf again. “A really huge wolf. Wow. This is how I die, isn’t it?”

“Lucky is friendly,” Clint insisted, and Scott tilted his head again, following Clint’s flight path.

“Lucky. Is. Friendly.” Scott repeated each word like a sentence, as though each bit needed a few moments for him to comprehend it. Then his face lit up like a starburst. “Well, come here Lucky! Aren’t you a good wolf?”

Lucky nudged up to Scott, her nose on level with his chest. She nuzzled into his hand, and Scott patted her head. 

Steve couldn’t help but smile. Trust Scott to make friends with the animal that had tried to kill him. 

“Wow. Sam’s going to be--well, honestly, I don’t even know how he’s going to be. This certainly beats all, Steve.”

“It’s been a long week,” Steve agreed. “I need to talk to Peggy.”

Scott led the odd procession through the camp. Steve was pleased to see that a few of the lean tos had been strengthened and reinforced, and a few more simple shelters set up against the trees. It didn’t take but a few minutes before everyone, the adults and children alike, were gathered around the center of the camp. They formed a loose, large circle around the fire. In the middle, Steve stood in front of Peggy, who held her arms open, and took him in for a tight hug.

“You’re alive,” she said, taking her place on the log in front of the fire. 

“Somehow I am.” Steve offered the other logs as seats for everyone before he sat down next to Peggy. Wanda and Pietro sat down, and Bucky nodded, but didn’t move. Lucky sat down at Clint’s command, and Clint and Natasha settled in her fur.

“If you weren’t all before my eyes, I’d certainly believe Steve had gone mad. My word.” Peggy’s hands shook, just a little, and she folded them in her lap. “I never thought I would have a chance--” She paused, and smiled. “Where are my manners? I apologize. We don’t have anything sweet to offer.”

One of the little girls near Peggy’s shoulder shook her head. “Pardon, Miss Peggy. We’ve got some blueberries from the trees! Sam showed us where to find them.”

“That will do, then.” Peggy smiled at her. “Go on and bring them here for us. Thank you.”

Steve made the introductions and started to tell his tale before Peggy put a soft hand on his shoulder. 

“I’ve all the time to hear from you later, Steve.” Peggy smiled at him. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear from your friends about why they’re here?” She turned towards Bucky and addressed him directly. “Certainly my young friend Steve here is an entertaining sort, but I don’t believe his good looks are what have brought you all here.”

Was Steve mistaken, or did Bucky’s cheeks go pink at the edges?

Bucky didn’t speak, but Wanda picked up the slack. “It’s been a challenging time for our people, if I may be blunt. There’s magic at play, the likes of which have not been seen in centuries.” She glanced around at the children who were edging forward to listen, as though she was weaving a bedtime story. “Perhaps there is some place in private we can speak?”

“We have only what you see here,” Peggy said, but she turned to the children and bid them to go play. “Everyone has had to learn a little more than they’d like since the flood.”

Wanda nodded and, with one last glance for the children lingering nearby, continued. “A human with access to magic that he shouldn’t have has destroyed our palace and killed our people for what we believe to be his search to find a dangerous artifact.” 

Peggy’s face fell for a brief moment, but she composed herself so quickly that Steve thought perhaps he’d imagined it. She nodded. “I’m sorry to learn of your losses.”

The warm fire and familiar smoke brought a sudden weariness to Steve’s bones even as he enjoyed the heat. He eyed the edges of the forest in a parody of a watch, tired but determined at the same time. As Wanda talked, the realization that regardless of what Peggy might be able to do to help, they were going to have to leave again settled in Steve’s heart. 

  
More travel, more time away from the people he knew best. Steve stretched his legs towards the fire and appreciated the way warmth slid up into his feet, traveling up his body until, for the first time in a long while, he almost felt as though he could relax. 

Peggy leaned forward. “What happened next?” 

With his eyes fixed warily on everyone surrounding them, Pietro took his hands out from under his cloak and showed the gray streaked skin to Peggy. His voice was quiet and did not carry. “He broke our Weavings. My hands have been like this ever since.”

“May I?” Peggy asked, reaching out. 

Pietro nodded and stood, coming close enough for Peggy to clasp her sturdy fingers, wrinkled by age, around his young but gray flesh. “Oh.” His eyes widened in surprise. “You have potential?”

Bowing her head, Peggy studied Pietro’s hand. “I suppose I could,” she said softly. “If the stories of my grandfather being an elf are true.”

Peggy’s words demanded Steve’s attention. His quest to watch the perimeter of the camp was abandoned as he listened to every word with the smallest shake of his head. Was there anything else that would surprise him now?

Bucky fixed Peggy with a hard stare. “Potential is not some sort of toy to squander away.”

“How could I ever have known?” Peggy returned Bucky’s stare with a soft smile. “I never did travel far from home.”

Steve had a sudden thought, a bit of a realization that perhaps, yes, there was more and more to surprise him. “Not to be rude, Peggy, but you’re older than we realized, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, most likely, Steve.” Peggy looked around the clearing, at all of the people who stood around them. “I’ll be one hundred and fifty if I stay around long enough to see winter.”

Sam was next to Scott, both of them leaning in to listen with matching expressions of surprise. Peggy’s niece, Sharon, was especially wide eyed. Everyone around them started to whisper, but they didn’t look as amazed as Steve might have expected. After the flood, though, Steve figured that revelations like this were easier and easier.

Bucky’s profile caught Steve’s eye. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Peggy, and his jaw worked like he was chewing his tongue in thought. In the open space of the clearing, with the slowly falling sunlight glittering on his hair and the firelight reflected in his eyes, he looked dangerous and beautiful. 

“It’s been so long.” Peggy’s voice was barely above a whisper. “When he passed, I thought perhaps I had imagined everything.”

Some of the children returned with a grass woven basket full of berries, and Peggy thanked them before offering the basket to their guests. The conversation shifted, for a minute, to talk of supper and warm food.

The thought of warm food had Steve wishing he could enjoy hot food and a comfortable night’s sleep. As he watched Bucky and Pietro carefully pick up blueberries and eat them, he knew that whatever happened now, he wasn’t going to be able to wait around and wonder. 

“Let me speak with them alone,” Peggy asked after they ate the offering. Though she didn’t raise her voice, everyone around nodded as though she had barked a command, and people came up to talk to Steve as he left his space by the fire to give them privacy.

“I can’t believe you,” Sam said as he wrapped Steve up in a big hug. “I should have known. We send you out to look into nothing and you find more than we could have imagined. I’m glad you’re back safe.” He glanced at the elves and fairies talking to Peggy, the giant direwolf sitting by her feet. “Though safe seems relative right now.”

“I guess I figured if they’re with Steve, they’re ok,” Scott said with a shrug and a smile.

Others crowded around, asking questions about his trip and what he found. Steve recounted his trip north, stopping right before he had seen the broken palace in the distance.

How was he supposed to explain the direwolf attack without causing a panic and having to speak of the sap Natasha used on him? He skipped over that part, picking up where he had tried to climb the cliff.

“It turned out I did not know how to climb a cliff effectively,” Steve said, to the amusement of the group. “Thankfully, Wanda was able to break my fall with her Weaving.”

“They really have magic?” The new voice was Tony. He had been on the outskirts of the group, pretending to be half interested. “What can they do?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. “But Wanda can manipulate the air. And the elf that attacked us, Brock, used fire like a sort of lash to attack us.” His back twinged in pain. Natasha hadn’t bothered with the burn, which, while painful, had been minor compared to the direwolf attack.

“Very interesting.” Tony tapped a finger to his chin as he watched Wanda and Peggy lean in to talk about something.

Steve would have given anything to listen to what Bucky added to the conversation. Next to Bucky, Pietro nodded. 

“How have things been here?” Steve asked, tearing his gaze away from Bucky.

“We’ve been scouting out locations for the planting.” Sam gestured south. “There’s some good land we have started to prepare. Everyone is working very hard.”

“Has anyone else come up this way?” Steve followed Sam’s gesture. 

“No one.” 

“We’re hoping to send out more scouting groups once the planting is done,” Scott added. 

Though the group that crowded around Steve was large, it seemed much smaller when he considered that this could be all that was left of humanity. A brief, muffled laugh from Wanda caught his attention, and Steve realized that if things were as bad as Wanda said, humans weren’t the only people in danger of extinction.

The enormity of it weighed on his shoulders, and his healed injuries twinged with the remembrance of pain. His eyes were heavy. They hadn’t slept much the past few nights, moving as much as they could during the days to get back without risking another attack.

Steve supposed that an attack wouldn’t be as bad with Wanda and Lucky. He had no clue how the fae would fair in an attack, though they could probably fly out of the way.

“We need to let him rest,” Sam said to the group, and slowly, they dispersed, going to gather the children back for supper.

“Thanks,” Steve said. He sat right on the hard-packed dirt, on top of the footsteps of everyone just trying to survive long enough to figure out what was next. He really hoped what was next wasn’t everyone dying.

When they had gotten food--delicious, hot fish and cold water--Peggy called for Steve to join her at the fire.

Peggy didn’t hesitate. “This is beyond what we are capable of handling. We are going to have to work fast if we want to stay ahead of our enemies.” Somehow, she seemed both younger and older than Steve remembered. Was it the firelight that shone against her eyes or was that glow simply part of her like it was with Bucky? At the same time, Steve had never been more aware of how weathered her skin was, the deepness of her wrinkles. 

“You seem like you know who we’re dealing with.” Steve bit into his fish. It melted like butter in his mouth. “I don’t know if that’s good or disastrous.”

“There was a story my grandfather told me of a… another half elf like me.” Peggy held her hands close to the fire. “I always thought it a cautionary tale, something akin to his stories of the elves and the fae. Now, comparing stories with our new friends, I see it might be the truth.”

Bucky scowled and Pietro looked stricken as Peggy spoke. Wanda just seemed determined.

“My grandfather spoke of a half elf named Alexander Pierce. He was born a very long time before me, and he should have been dead by the time I was born.” Peggy paused, looking up towards the trees. Everyone waited while she sorted the details of her grandfather’s tale, trying to reconcile the dates. She shook her head. “Regardless, the story goes that he realized his potential when he was young.” Peggy paused. “My grandfather never spoke of how to recognize my potential. He just told me this story. I suppose that’s not important right now.”

“This is a very big rediscovery for you,” Steve offered quietly. 

Peggy nodded. “Hopefully I will have time to sort it out. Well, let’s see. Eventually, Pierce was able to come into his Weaving and after awhile, he began to lead a field of study. I assume you are familiar with the four Weavings, Steve?”

“A little.” The burn on his back twinged, a reminder of the fight a few days back. 

“Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Every elf is well suited to one, right?” Peggy’s question was directed towards the elves.

“Yes,” Wanda agreed. “Everyone now and again, someone will be suited to two, but in order to progress farther, they have to specialize. Very few elves are content with simply knowing the basics of two.”

“Perfect. Thank you. As my grandfather tells it, Pierce was interested in something different. He was convinced there was a fifth Weaving. Shadoweaving.” Peggy spoke the word like it was dirt. 

Even without any background in it, the term was cold and sharp on Steve’s ears, almost like a shiver of wind whispering across the clearing.

“Which I would have dismissed as absolute insanity until now,” Bucky growled, holding up his hands. “How else do you explain this?” 

“I don’t know. I agree with you. My grandfather told a tale of a young man consumed by his interest in learning more, of being more. That Pierce never quite felt like he fit in with the humans or the elves, and he was determined to make up for it by being stronger than any other elf.” Peggy frowned. “Even my grandfather didn’t sound like he believed it when he told it. I would have never dreamed it was true.”

Despite the bustle of people all around them doing their best to give them some semblance of privacy, despite the crackling of the fire and the sounds of the forest, it was too quiet.

“We’ve been told that story a little differently,” Pietro added after a moment. “But it fits. And if it fits, that means we can assume he’s who we’re dealing with and figure out what to do next.”

Clint and Natasha observed the conversation from their spot nestled on top of Lucky’s head. Neither had spoken, and Steve wondered if they’d continue to help. Unlike his town and the elven palace, it didn’t sound like the fae had lost many to the flood. Clearly something must be motivating them to stay.

Steve just hoped they weren’t simply being opportunistic.

“I’ve never heard of being able to break a Weaving with a Shadoweaving, so I don’t know if we can be certain,” Peggy admitted. “But it’s not something I’ve studied in depth. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not something that anyone has studied recently,” Bucky said slowly. His voice was sharp, his eyes dark even in the glow of the fire.

Everyone turned towards him. Steve swallowed at the sight of Bucky leaning forward with the grimmest of expressions across his face. Bucky radiated danger, but the soft curve of his lips betrayed sorrow. He masked it with his anger a moment later, his voice rising as he spoke.

“As long as we are going back centuries, then let’s go back. You all are vaguely aware that our people lived together in what some would call harmony, yes?” Bucky spit the words out like they were laced with poison.

“That’s how it’s always been told,” Peggy agreed. If she was nervous about the way Bucky was acting, she didn’t show it. She leaned closer. “Though we know that history tends to favor the victor.”

“Humans and elves lived together,” Bucky growled, his voice mesmerizing. “They grew together, built grand cities and kingdoms together. Our palace is--was--a pale imitation of what it used to be like. We had everything. But humans wanted more. They always wanted more. There were always those who were jealous of the elven Weavings. They didn’t care that they were stronger in other ways. They didn’t have Weavings, and they wanted them. So they did their best to figure out how to get them.”

“The Cult of the Undying,” Peggy offered quietly, and Bucky nodded. 

Wanda swallowed, her face paling.

“Yes. You know what they did.” Bucky set his eyes on Steve, because he seemed to know that Steve had no clue. He bore holes in Steve’s soul as he spoke. “The members of this cult thought that perhaps the magic was in our blood, and they started to sacrifice us in the hopes that they could take it for themselves. They thought that if they gave us up to their goddess of death, they could take our magic.”

“The goddess of death, Hela,” Steve whispered. Of course he had heard of her, but he’d never heard of this facet. He took a deep breath to steady himself, even as the world seemed to spin faster. Of course his ancestors had tried to kill off the elves. Why else would the elves have fled to so far and to such high grounds? That cliff wasn’t a happy accident; it was a calculated decision to keep others from finding them.

“Yes, Steve. Your ancestors were convinced that they deserved what we had, and they were willing to do anything to get it.”

“That’s not how it is now,” Steve muttered, even though he knew it didn’t matter. He couldn’t shake the sorrow of imagining his ancestors tying Bucky to an alter as a sacrifice.

“So three hundred years ago, we left. We went north until we found the lake that fed the river that supported your damned kingdoms. And we dammed the lake in the hopes that it would dry up the river enough to kill you all off.” Bucky’s expression was unreadable. “And if that failed, we hoped that it would thin your numbers until you had no power over us.”

Peggy reached out and put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He allowed it.

Steve sat, a cold shock spreading in his chest as he considered Bucky’s words. Unable to know where to begin, he settled for silence.

“But now, if all of these stories are true, then isn’t your Pierce character hundred of years old?” Clint asked, breaking the lull of the conversation.

“Yes, but at this point, is that really hard to believe?” Wanda chewed on her bottom lip. “We never got a good look at him, so I don’t have an adequate description.”

Bucky’s voice was dark and rough and pricked at the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck. “My annoyance with the fae praying to Loki is overshadowed by the idea that Pierce thinks he has Hela’s favor.” 

Steve tried to imagine what it must have been like before. Kingdoms. He tried to imagine the broken palace he’d seen in the distance and how imposing it must have been. And Bucky said that it was a pale imitation of what used to be.

The chilled air of the night whispered through the clearing and Steve wrapped his cloak a little tighter.

The last log of the fire was burning. At some point, the children had been shuffled off to sleep and as the light of the day had faded, others had gone to lie down, though it was unlikely anyone had fallen asleep yet. The cold was starting to settle in, and Steve was jealous of Clint and Natasha, who were still curled up in Lucky’s fur. Pietro and Wanda were huddled for warmth next to each other, but Bucky sat proud and alone.

“Where do we go from here?” Pietro mused out loud. “I suppose we need to find the research Pierce did to try to reverse what he’s done to us.” He paused, a frown deepening. “Do we go back to the palace? What if he’s waiting for us to do just that? Don’t suppose he’d be waiting for a friendly chat.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, none of that is there.” 

“What do you mean?” Wanda asked.

“The elders didn’t want anyone to look into his research. When we fled the old kingdoms, they left everything behind.”   
“These are places that no one has lived for over three centuries?” Steve clarified. 

Bucky shot him a dirty look and Steve could only imagine it was for the crime of being human. Slowly, Bucky’s expression softened and he nodded. 

Steve glanced out toward the forest. “How do we find that? Do you have a map?”

“If he’s looking for the old cities, he would have taken any of the records that we had in the palace. That’s probably why he torn up the place.” Bucky cursed before casting a glance at the shelters were people slept and lowering his voice a touch. 

Wanda tapped her finger against her chin. “Although if he’s truly this Alexander Pierce, wouldn’t he just know where to go?”

“He might. But that’s a long time to be around,” Natasha said from her spot surrounded by white gray fur. “If he’s traded something for longevity, who knows what price he’s paid. There’s always a catch with magic as you very well know. ”

“So we need to search for a city that doesn’t exist without getting attacked by a person who shouldn’t exist using magic that can’t exist.” Pietro set his shoulders, but exhaustion hung in the corners of his eyes. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“First you all need some rest,” Peggy declared. “There’s nothing to be gained by staying up to worry. Steve can help you find some space to sleep, though I regret to say it will not be much.” 

“Thank you, Peggy. You’ve given us a lot to think about.” Wanda rose from her log by the nearly dead fire, rubbing her arms under her cloak. 

“I’ve got space for you, Wanda, if you’d like,” Sharon offered, stepping closer from where she’d been standing and watching them. “I promise I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I just figured you would need a place to sleep.”

“The ground would have suited me fine, but I appreciate your offer.” Wanda gathered up her pack.

Sharon nodded to the small branches propped up against a few trees. “It’ll break the wind if nothing else.”

She brought Wanda to her tiny shelter, and Tony came over to offer Pietro a spot to sleep as well. Which left Steve staring at Bucky and pressing his tongue against his teeth for a moment before making the offer.

“I have plenty of space for you to stay where I’d been sleeping.” Even as he spoke, Steve kind of hoped Bucky would just huff off and leave him be for the evening.

Even as he spoke, he remembered waking up in Bucky’s lap under the trees during the storm and having a single, solitary moment of peacefulness in the midst of the cold and pain when he had looked up into Bucky’s eyes.

“That will be fine, thank you,” Bucky muttered, so quiet Steve almost asked him to repeat himself.

Bucky heaved his pack over his shoulder and nodded for Steve to lead the way. Steve glanced down to see that Natasha and Clint already appeared to have fallen asleep on Lucky. He suspected, on instinct, that they might not yet be asleep. 

Steve’s lean-to was a few paces farther than most of the others. He hadn’t felt comfortable letting others sleep on the outskirts of their tiny attempt at civilization. Someone, maybe Scott or Sam, had stuffed the cracks between the tree branches with fresh ferns, and it blocked most of the wind once they were both inside the small space.

“Perhaps your friends don’t hate you as much as I had figured, given that they had sent you on that fool’s quest,” Bucky said as he settled down into the dirt. If the lack of a bed bothered him, he didn’t act like it. He settled his pack under his head as a pillow and pulled his blanket up.

“I’m glad you had a chance to see that we’re not like how you imagined.” Steve shifted his pack until it formed a comfortable enough angle to lie on. 

He was immediately aware of how close Bucky was beside him. The little twigs and sticks poking inward from the side of the shelter made scooting away an unappealing choice, so Steve stayed exactly where he was, close enough to feel the heat of Bucky’s breath on his neck when he spoke.

“All it took were a few dissenters to make my ancestors fear for their lives.” Bucky didn’t speak above a whisper, but his anger bled through just the same. “I appreciate that you’ve refrained from trying to kill me for the few days we’ve known each other, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore the lessons of history.”

Steve nodded, his head pressing his pack into the dirt. “Maybe history can be our guide to avoid that again.”

Bucky scoffed, and Steve didn’t need light to hear the eyeroll. “Yeah. Ok. Good night, Steve.”

“Good night, Bucky.” 

The unseasonable chill of the night whispered of the potential of a late spring frost, and Steve found himself unable to sleep as he considered the devastation a single frost could have on their one chance to plant for the winter.

“I appreciate you offering me a place to sleep, but I must ask if you’re planning on tossing and turning until the sun rises.” Bucky’s voice lacked the bite from earlier.

“Sorry,” Steve said. He considered telling a lie and claiming he couldn’t get comfortable, but he’d slept on dirt every night before. He gave a half-truth, certain Bucky didn’t need to hear about his crop worries. “I’m cold.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but in one swift movement, he reached out and put an arm on Steve’s side and closed the already minimal space between them. The warm of his chest on Steve’s back and the steady pulse of his heart provided more comfort than Steve would have thought possible. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep, even though he had no clue what the morrow would bring.


	8. Chapter 8

Steve was asleep. With only slivers of moon streaming through the tightly stacked branches, Bucky couldn’t quite make out the details of his figure. He’d be hard pressed to explain why he kept his arm around Steve’s side, somewhere just above his waist, even after he’d clearly fallen asleep and stopped shivering. But after the revelations of the day, being close to another warm body soothed his frazzled nerves. 

Being close to Steve helped push aside the knowledge that nearly everyone he knew was dead and that his life was irreversibly changed. Steve slept, and Bucky clung to him in quiet desperation, trying to stave off the loneliness that loomed just outside the branches of the tiny shelter. 

Steve, thankfully, stayed asleep in Bucky’s arms. In the dark, Bucky couldn’t make out the shape of Steve’s ears and or stare at the lack of glow in Steve’s eyes. In the dark, Bucky could almost pretend he was holding one of his own kind, and not some human. He could almost pretend, except Steve’s arms were thick with muscle and his chest strong unlike the handful of elves Bucky had lain with in the past. 

Bucky forced his thoughts away from Steve’s solid presence and let his mind wander, until a sudden childhood memory of the first time he had begun Weaving took him for a bout of nostalgia.

_ “Put your hand on the ground, feel the dirt shifting beneath your fingers, and concentrate,” said the teacher. For two of the little elves standing around Bucky, the ground had began to vibrate, tiny little whispers of the powers they would come to harness. They smiled and cheered in happiness. _

_ “Good. Now everyone else, hold your hands in front of you. Feel the wind whispering through your fingers. Concentrate.” The teacher’s voice wove in and out of Bucky’s memory, a half erased image. _

_ Three of them had managed to send a fledgling Weaving out into the air like a lost breeze. _

_“That’s wonderful work, my children.” Bucky couldn’t picture his teacher’s face anymore, as if she had passed away in his memories too. But her voice remained._ _“We are always surrounded by earth and by air. Many can draw upon these forces, but few can master them. Never let someone suggest you are less for Weaving with these elements.”_

_ There were three of them left, and young Bucky shifted on his feet, toeing at the dirt with a soft slippered foot. The teacher bid them to come closer and stand by the small fire she’d kept burning during their lesson _

_ “Don’t touch the flame,” she instructed. “Hold your hand near and pull the flame towards you.” _

_ One little girl had cried out in delight when the flame did as she commanded. She pulled her hand away a second later with a yelp of pain. _

_ The teacher’s face reappeared for a gentle smile, the expression flickering into something harsh and unforgiving as Bucky’s remembrance of her faded again. “When we work with the flame, a little goes a long way. We will teach you how to harness it and protect yourself at the same time.” The teacher pulled out a small jar of salve and motioned for the girl to hold her hand out. She applied the salve and patted her shoulder. “You’ll be alright shortly.” _

_ Bucky and his final classmate exchanged nervous glances. Most likely, they would be able to move the water.  _

_ But sometimes, children their age still hadn’t come into their Weaving. _

_ Bucky really hoped he wasn’t a “sometimes.” Not this time. _

_ “Put your hand on top of the water, just enough to break the surface.” _

_ Just as though he was kneeling at the lake to take a drink, Bucky placed his fingertips on the water, and pushed his hand in just enough to cover the pads of his fingers. _

_ “Concentrate.” _

_ The boy next to Bucky made a frustrated noise when nothing happened for him, but Bucky wasn’t paying attention. He was too focused on the water. It seemed to be singing to him, lifting up into his very body and clamoring to become part of him. _

_ “Come with us! Come with us!” the water cried out in a language of tiny, musical drops. They weren’t words so much as a feeling, but the meaning was crystal clear. “Come play!” _

_ “Oh,” Bucky thought, closing his eyes. He pulled on the threads that wound through the water, invisible, thin strings that would break if someone were to as much as splash them. With his eyes closed, he could almost see how to bind the strings together, to make them stronger and stronger, Weaving them until they formed an unbreakable rope. _

_ His heart swelled with the thrill of it, and he plunged his hand deeper into the water, reaching to collect more threads to Weave his water rope longer. _

_ The next thing he knew, he was underwater and two strong hands were pulling him up, he was breaking the surface, he was gasping for air and trying to breath and there, streaming like the tiniest waterfall from his hand, was his very first Weaving. _

Bucky woke up wrapped around Steve. His eyes were wet, and his hands were numb. It was too cold for a spring night, he thought as he settled closer against Steve’s warm back. 

Steve tilted his head, still asleep from the sound of his soft breath.

When he closed his eyes again, Bucky tried to cling to the memory of his Weaving. This wisps of his memory sank down, out of reach. He imagined reaching his hand into the water as he had done as a child and the water flowed over his gray streaked fingers, never stopping to cheer, nevering pausing to invite him to play.

The shiver that ran through Bucky’s body had nothing to do with the cold night air. Despite the heat of another person slotted up against him, with his Weaving gone, Bucky felt completely alone.

 

*

 

When the sun rose, it quickly chased away the chill of the night. Bucky sat and ate his breakfast, staring at his hands. The gray streaks ran from his fingers to his wrists, a constant reminder that he was no more capable to protect anyone than the children running around the campsite. 

Across the way, Steve was talking to Scott and another of the humans and Bucky forced himself to look away. He had to think of Steve as simply a necessary addition to their trip, a hired sword as it were, and not someone he’d spent the night tangled together with. 

Steve’s heated voice carried over the clearing, and Bucky couldn’t help but to look again. He saw Steve crossing his arms across his broad chest and shaking his head at his companions.

Before he could remind himself not to get involved, Bucky’s damnable feet carried him to the brewing situation.

“Good morning,” Bucky said with the barest of a nod. “I see you look like you’re going to start a fight with some of the only remaining humans in the world. Doesn’t seem like a great plan, seeing as we need you in one piece for more than a day.” 

Steve stopped and turned to Bucky. He blinked, as though he couldn’t figure out the correct response, and then he laughed. He laughed with his whole body, and that had everyone around him seeming to relax.

“Look. He’s traveled with you for what, less than a week, and he already knows you!” crowed the human with close cropped black hair.

Scott just grinned as he held the first man’s hand, his expression mirroring the other man’s words.

Steve rolled his eyes. “I see what you’re trying to say, Sam, but no. He just met me at a bad time.”

“Ah.” Bucky really needed to stop talking. But his traitorous voice kept going. “So the end of the world is simply a ‘bad time’ for Steve Rogers.”

Steve turned to Bucky with an easy smile. “Ignore Scott. Actually, ignore Sam, too.”

Bucky had to force a scowl on his face, lest he smile back at Steve’s ability to smile despite the flood and the conversations of last night. 

He turned to Sam and Scott. “Steve was trying to scale a cliff without proper technique the day we found him. He had just survived a direwolf attack and could hardly stand.” 

There wasn’t a chance in Hela’s afterlife that Bucky could disguise his grin when Sam and Scott started to turn to Steve, their exasperated sighs almost in unison. 

“Despite this,” Bucky continued with feigned nonchalance, “he flung himself headfirst into battle against an opponent he’d never faced before. So yes, I suppose the end of the world is just one facet of a ‘bad time’ that Steve was experiencing when we met.”

“You didn’t tell us you were  _ hurt _ .” Sam threw up his arms before running a hand down his face and heaving another sigh.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? I survived.” Steve was back to crossing his arms over his chest, his face stone.

“You wouldn’t let me walk on my hurt foot for a week,” said Scott. “So, you’re in no place to tell us we can’t come with.”

“We need as many people here as possible for the planting,” Steve insisted. 

Bucky considered the conversation for a few more moments before speaking again. “We’ll be happy to have you along.”

Steve turned and leveled a glare at Bucky. He might not have his Weaving, but Bucky wasn’t intimidated. He knew what Steve felt like in his arms. He’d seen Steve huddled on the ground in a fevered sleep. No, he didn’t know what to make of Steve Rogers, but he was confident Steve knew bringing the others was the correct decision. 

So Bucky waited. He tilted his head. He smiled. He tried not to think about how nice it was to smile at someone.

Steve dropped the glare as his cheeks went pink at the edges. “Fine.”

“Alright then.” Bucky turned to Sam and Scott. “We’re going to leave soon. I suggest you gather what you need.”

They left, and Bucky contemplated explaining himself to Steve. Steve, however, was already walking across the clearing.

“Hey.” 

Bucky turned to see Pietro and Wanda. They had both changed into their lighter traveling outfits, but Pietro had pulled on a pair of gloves.

“Anything working today?” Bucky asked in lieu of a proper greeting. He held up his hand. 

“Same.” Pietro nodded towards where Steve was heading. “I see you’re playing nice with everyone.”

“I’m not here to make friends.” Bucky shrugged. “We need as many bodies as we can get between us and Pierce.”

“Speaking of friends,” Wanda added, without missing a beat, “Sharon and I had a few conversations last night. She’s going to come with us.”

Bucky pursed his lips. Despite his attempt at nonchalance, he couldn’t help the guilt that settled in his stomach that maybe they  _ were _ just dragging the humans to their deaths.

He pushed that aside. They chose to come. And they’d all die eventually anyhow. 

Bucky took a deep breath. “Good work, Wanda.”

Wanda smiled. “She made the decision on her own, you know.”

Did she always see through him like that? “So did the other two who want to come along,” he said. 

The sun was so blasted hot as it peered through between leaves and branches, such a stark contrast from the unseasonably cold night. 

Bucky took his cloak off and folded it a few times before draping it over his arm. “I don’t understand them. I admitted that our ancestors tried to kill them and yet they didn’t so much as consider us a threat. They offered to help.”

“I’d imagine that’s because we’re not a threat,” Pietro said darkly, nodding to Bucky. “Well, Wanda is, of course. But Steve knows all of that. And yet he let Sharon offer her space to you. He doesn’t think we’re going to hurt anyone.”

“I’m not!” Wanda’s hands took on a little glow as she activated her Weaving, just a bit to burn her nervous energy. “Not them. I’m saving everything I’ve got for Pierce.”

“Me too,” Bucky agreed. “Let’s get moving. The sooner we’re away from ...” He trailed off. 

There were humans milling around everywhere. A few of them were openly staring, but most were tending to the day’s chores while the children ran around picking up sticks and wood for the fires.

Bucky watched one woman come over and help another string up some rope to hang laundry. A few of the children straggled over to help bring the baskets of clothes down to the river. 

Wanda put her hand on Bucky’s arm. “Everyone’s gathering over by Peggy.”

Bucky nodded and took a deep breath in hopes of clearing his mind. The sun that reached his back was comfortably warm. “Perhaps the day’s heat will last into the night tonight.”

Steve was already talking with Peggy as they approached.

“I can’t believe I just got you back and you’re leaving us again.” Peggy wrapped her arms around Steve as he held her tight for a breath longer and then let go.

Bucky studied Peggy as she exchanged a few more words with Steve. Did those knowledgeable brown eyes of hers hold a hint of a glow? When he closed his eyes, could he almost feel her presence?

Or had he simply wished those signs into existence? He blew out a breath, impatience suddenly settling in his chest. “If you are all done with your goodbyes, we ought to be on our way.” He met Peggy’s eyes for a moment, searching. 

She didn’t look away, just smiled with sorrow written in the wrinkles of her eyes. “I’m sorry we haven’t had a better chance to talk, Bucky.”

“I’ve got so many questions for you if I come back,” Steve told Peggy. 

“You’d better come back,” Peggy admonished, her voice catching on the last syllable. She blinked a few times and sighed. “There’s never been a dull moment with you around, Steve.”

Bucky’s heart clenched and he looked away, suddenly furious that he never had a chance for goodbyes with his friends, his family. Steve and his friends kept their words brief, but it was still infinitely more than none.

He didn’t speak again until they were in the thick of the underbrush and the campsite settlement had disappeared behind the trees. “Clint seemed very sure of his directions.”

From his side, Wanda nodded as she looked ahead. Clint and Natasha were glittering drops of light against Lucky’s shaggy fur. “I’m inclined to believe that he’s going to be the best tracker out of all of us.”

Pietro was silent.

The humans walked as a group behind them, and Bucky didn’t look back often. The sticks cracking and crunch of leaves was enough to remind him of their presence. He’d seen Steve trailing at the back of the group, not because his leg was bothering him, but because he was keeping an eye everyone, making sure that no one fell behind.

Bucky kept his eyes on Lucky. Every now and again, Clint would disappear for several minutes and then zip back to his spot by Natasha. 

The third time Clint flew off, Bucky grumbled, “They haven’t mentioned their price yet. That’s what has me concerned.”

“Me too,” Pietro agreed, and Wanda nodded.

“But there’s something different about them,” she added as Lucky paused ahead of them and sniffed the ground. “I guess I don’t have a true comparison. I’ve never met a fairy before them, but something seems off.”

Clint studied the sky for a minute before shifting their travel slightly to the south. The forest was unfamiliar, but the sun was the same. It wasn’t too much longer before Clint called a stop for lunch.

They ate dried meat and berries and Bucky had a thought that it would have been nice to be as small as Clint and Natasha and be satisfied with a berry or two.

The thicket of trees imposed some separation, forcing them to sit in little groups of three or four. The humans clustered together close enough to fit everyone in between three giant tree trunks. Bucky listened from his spot a tree over as Steve spoke.

“I can only hope we’re making good time to where we need to be.” Steve wasn’t sitting; he stood between two tall trees, tramping down the overgrown brush with his continuous movement.

“You need to rest,” Scott told him. 

Bucky smirked from his spot just out of sight. 

“Where are you going?” Clint asked, and Bucky turned to see who he was talking to.

Natasha was flying just past the next tree. “I’m going to scout the area.” She dropped her voice, but Bucky made out the words. “Something isn’t right. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Pietro met Bucky’s eyes and they scanned the forest as best they could see from where they sat. Pietro didn’t need to say anything; the frustration that he couldn’t put his hand on the ground and reach out to scout for hidden troubles was written into his face.

“I’ll see what’s around,” Wanda said softly. She closed her eyes to concentrate on sending out the thinnest line of her Weaving, barely rippling the air as she did so. 

Bucky sat, tension straining his shoulders. He rotated them back in an attempt to relax, but only one through ran through his mind-- _ I’m useless without my Weaving _ . It rose like heat on his skin. 

“Clint, is there something we should be preparing for?” He was pleased he managed to keep his voice even.

Clint shook his head as he flew nearer. He landed on a leaf on the ground. “Nat gets in a mood sometimes. Suspicious of everything that seems off.” He glanced north. “I guess after the flood, I don’t blame her for wanting to investigate.”

By now, both Sharon and Steve were looking over while Clint spoke. 

“If there’s anything you need us to do, let us know.” Steve crossed his arms. “We’re not mind readers.” He paused as an instant of terror flashed across his face. “Do you guys do that? Read minds?”

Bucky snorted out a laugh. “Some things are still just superstitions, Steve.”

“Speak for yourself,” Clint said, but his grin belied the truth. 

Probably. Bucky realized he had no way of knowing what the fae knew.

“Right, well.” Steve waved it off, as though it didn’t bother him. “We agreed to come with. I’ve seen personally that at least one elf seems to want to cause some destruction. But don’t leave us in the dark if there’s something else we ought to know.”

“Yeah,” Sam added. “You guys seem to know all about each other, but we’ve got nothing except for a few myths.”

Sharon nodded. “Meera and Rune.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be curious to see how your history has destroyed Rune’s tale, though now is not the time.”

“But you see our point, right?” Steve asked. His hands were steady on his hips. “We need to be privy to whatever information you’re not sharing.”

“Go on, Clint.” Bucky fixed him with a stare. “Tell us.”

Clint didn’t get a word out before Wanda cried out, a loud shout of terror, and a second later, Natasha came flying through the trees like her wings were on fire. 

Lucky bounded to her feet, her teeth bared and her fur standing up. 

“He’s out there.” Wanda’s eyes were wide open as she dismissed her Weaving as fast as she could. She swallowed. “I felt it. If I had more than a wisp out, he would have…” She cut off.

“This way,” Natasha said, nodding sharply to the direction she’d came from. “Get moving,  _ now. _ ” 

“Where are we going?” Steve asked as he shoved his pack together and threw it over his shoulders. His hand was at his sword. “Should we prepare for a fight?”

“We can’t win a fight with Bucky and Pietro like this,” Wanda said, pale. 

They couldn’t run through the underbrush. The birds didn’t even call out as they crashed among the trees, following Natasha and Clint, who hovered close to Lucky.

Something moved in the forest behind them, an unnatural presence like a shouted whisper or a burning shard of ice. Bucky’s numb hands ached and he didn’t want to admit to the chill in his chest. Pierce could shatter Wanda’s Weaving. Steve’s sword had no chance. 

They were as good as dead.

“We’re almost there,” Clint shouted back at them. “Whatever you do, don’t hesitate. And don’t step on any of the leaves or mushrooms when we get through the circle.”

Bucky frowned as they pushed the pace as fast as possible. “Fucking fae,” he ground out. “I should have known you’d find a way to force our hand.”

Even across the way, Bucky saw Natasha’s lips were set in a grim line. “Say whatever you’d like. Just move faster if you don’t want to die out here.”

The trees thinned, and the group followed Lucky’s bounding leaps as best they could. Steve started to stumble on his mostly healed leg and Sam was damned near dragging Scott along. 

Light and heat poured down on them as the trees broke off abruptly and they found themselves in a huge, perfect circle of a clearing, with a single sapling tree in the middle. Rocks lined a circle of the clearing, a space so large that the tiny tree seemed too small to belong. 

“Right through here,” Clint pointed to a spot where the pattern of the rocks seemed minutely different, and Bucky swallowed back his fear and stepped into the circle behind Wanda. “Keep moving! Give them space. Don’t step on anything!”

Bucky watched his feet as he moved over. The tree in the middle was small, but its roots grew as though the tree was ancient. They ran out in every direction, disappearing under the dirt where the rocks were lain. The fairy circle had more than enough space for all of them to stand without fear of stepping on any of the mushrooms or leaves.

Steve was the last person into the circle, crossing over just as a long shadow extended from the forest. The perfectly gray shadow stole the light everywhere it crossed.

Bucky held his breath as Pierce stepped out of the forest. 

“You can’t hide forever,” he called. His voice was normal. Affable. As though he were making friendly conversation before supper and not prepared to murder every last person in front of him had he the chance.

Bucky didn’t know what he expected. He forced himself to look at Pierce. The half elf stood tall and confident, his hands tucked into his pockets as though he was there for a simple chat.

“He can’t reach us?” Wanda asked suddenly.

Clint nodded, his eyebrows furrowed. “As long as we don’t invite him into the inner circle, we’ll be safe here for now.”

Bucky glanced around the clearing, which, while spacious, wasn’t his idea of a place to stay forever.

“Clint. Natasha. We’ve been waiting for you.” An ancient voice spoke out, and a fairy with nearly incandescent, glittering wings flew into sight.

Behind him, a handful of fairies had gathered near the tree. Still others emerged from under the leaves tucked against mushrooms and rocks and the roots of the trees, flying around like dots of starlight in the middle of the day.

“Wow,” Sharon whispered.

“Are we safe in here?” Scott asked quietly.

Bucky refrained from both rolling his eyes and from saying something like, ‘safe enough for now.’

Wanda still gave him a look, like he’d better not say what he was thinking.

“Yes, we’re safe,” Clint said. He positioned himself between the elder fairy and Natasha, drawing himself up to his full, tiny height. “That’s why we brought them here, so that everyone would be safe.”

The oldest one spoke again. “We are happy to see you returned.” He met Clint and Natasha’s eyes in turn and the ‘but’ in his pause was as clear as day. 

Outside the circle, Pierce continued to stand and wait. 

“You both know the penalty of bringing outsiders to the Circle without prior permission-”

Natasha cut him off, beating her wings in indignation. “We couldn’t leave them to die.”

Scott nodded. “We appreciate that.”

Steve shushed him, but Bucky shook his head. “Scott is right. We do appreciate not being dead.”

The Ancient fairy fixed Bucky with an impassive look before turning his attention back to Natasha and Clint. “Be that as it may, we must attend to the rules. We will prepare the flames.”

Lucky growled softly.

“What  _ flames _ ?” Bucky asked, gesturing to Pierce at the edge of the clearing. “Are you blind? Did you not see his Shadoweaving?”

The elder fairy held up a hand. “Now is not the time for us to begin setting aside the rules. Not with-”

“That’s Alexander Pierce,” Natasha cut him off again, and everyone stopped, the soft glow of fairy trails suspended in midair. “You suspected there were old forces at work and you were right.”

“By Loki’s dagger.” The Ancient fairy flew towards the edge of the rocks to get a better look.

Pierce strolled closer to the rocks as if to meet him. When he got within arms length of the rocks, something flashed like lightning. Pierce grunted and stepped back, but the smirk on his face never faltered.

“Ah. You’ve learned some tricks this time around,” he called in a tone of voice like he was praising an animal. “Excellent work. Maybe this time, it’ll be a challenge to destroy you.”

“This time?” Bucky asked.

Natasha shook her head. Every fairy had come out from their tiny little shelters, forming lines behind the elder fairy. The littlest of them called out questions and the older ones shushed them, and many were trembling.

With a flick of his wrist, Pierce sent out his Weaving, pulling it from the shadows of the trees. It lashed up against the air where the stones sat and stopped suddenly. Pierce grunted again, like he’d pushed up against a solid wall instead of the air.

“Very well.” Pierce pursed his lips. 

Bucky’s hands were ice cold. He didn’t realize he was stepping forward until someone-- Steve--put his hand on his shoulder.

“Hold steady,” Steve muttered. “We need you to stay safe.” 

Bucky froze mid-stride, just two steps away from crossing the invisible fae protection. He swallowed and blinked back sudden tears of frustration. Stay put and survive. He’d rather have his damned Weaving back and fight.

But he stood still and Steve kept a heavy hand on his shoulder. Bucky didn’t tell him to let go. He just stared at his hands, stared past them to focus on Pierce.

“It’s a damned shame, you know.” Pierce met Bucky’s eyes. “You could have helped shape the future of the world.” He gestured to Pietro and Wanda behind Bucky. “All of you could have. It’s odd how everyone thinks I’m  _ against _ the elves… no, you have all given me more than I could have dreamed of.”

Steve’s grip tightened on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky would never admit how grateful he was for that grounding presence. He bit at his lip and worked his tongue against his teeth, trying not to scream.

The fae, the other humans, even Wanda and Pietro… all of it faded to the background as Bucky focused on Steve’s hand on his shoulder. Steve, with his golden sunlit hair and his steady blue eyes.

Bucky tore his gaze away from Pierce. Sounds began to flicker back into his awareness as he breathed. Whatever Natasha was saying floated through the breeze. Clint’s answer was just as airy. 

By the time Sam whispered something to Steve, the words were almost distinguishable to Bucky’s ears.   
  
Steve didn’t let go of Bucky, but he did relax his fingers until they were just brushed against the fabric of his shirt.

Bucky wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around Pierce’s throat, but even that urge started to fade. Bucky realized the fairies were flying all around him, beautiful in their gemlike colors. The elder fairy, his wings delicate and stained with intricate patterns, moved in front of him.

Pierce took a sudden breath and  f lung his Weaving against the fae wall, grunting with effort as it hit and lightning sparked back at him as several of the younger fae cried out in fear. Pierce took a step back and pursed his lips.

“Whether I have my way with you now or later, well, does it really matter?” Pierce continued his conversation as if they were enjoying tea together, as if he hadn’t just tried to destroy everything the fae had worked to put together. “Have your fun with the fae. I’ll be waiting.”

Pierce smiled, and it sent a chill down Bucky’s spine. 

And then he turned and left, his Weaving poking one last time at the invisible fae wall before scattering in the light until it, too, was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

# 9

 

Steve kept his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, a light, unwavering touch. Slowly, the rock solid tension under Bucky’s skin began to melt away, and only then did Steve let go, still half expecting Bucky to dash after Pierce regardless. He wasn’t sure what had compelled him to put his hand out in the first place, but he was thankful Bucky hadn’t slapped it away.

After checking the ground underneath him to make sure it was clear of tiny fae houses, Steve sat down. His heart still raced, thumping madly as he considered how close they’d been to facing Pierce in the open.

Steve had a feeling his sword wouldn’t have been much help against the strong force of Pierce’s Weaving.

Another minute passed, and then Bucky sat down, facing him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, and I’d say ‘anytime,’ but if I’m being honest, I hope we’re never in this situation again,” Steve said. He couldn’t help the rush of words that tumbled out on the back of his nerves. If Pierce had found them even a minute sooner, they would have all been as good as dead.

The thought lingered like a bad dream and Steve couldn’t help but wish they had been able to face Pierce once and for all. Now Pierce was still out there, and the gods help anyone who crossed his path.

“That Pierce fellow really thinks highly of himself, doesn’t he?” Scott came and gave Steve a pat on the back. “Good job not trying to jump at him and take him one on one.”

Steve didn’t miss the way Bucky’s eyebrow raised sharply at Scott’s words. He wasn’t going to admit that his hand on Bucky’s shoulder had been as much for himself as it had been to stop Bucky.

“I should have tried.” Steve closed his eyes, letting flashes of memories play across them. “It’s funny, really. I’d give almost anything to just worry about the fall harvest instead of this.”

Bucky shrugged. “Sometimes today’s worries are tomorrow’s dreams.”

“That’s, uh, quite poetic,” Steve said, glancing to meet Bucky’s eyes.

Was it his imagination, or were the tips of Bucky’s ears tinged pink? Bucky shrugged again and stood. “It is something my teachers said often. We must plan our next move.”

Steve didn’t know what exactly to make of Bucky’s behaviour towards him, but Bucky wasn’t wrong. WIth a few careful steps around tiny fae houses, they made their way to where Wanda and Sharon were talking to the others.

“Pierce seemed confident that our actions will do nothing to change his plans,” Wanda said, the worry plain on her face.

Sharon nodded. “I don’t know much about him except for what you’ve said, but it’s honestly a bit terrifying.”

WIth a scowl, Pietro agreed. “If he can break our Weaving, we have no way to attack him.” WIth a glance at Steve and the others, he added, “I don’t doubt you’re all talented with your weapons, but how do you plan to use them against the shadows?”

“No place is so dark a light cannot shine,” Steve said. He realized a moment later that Bucky had muttered the same words and couldn’t help his little grin as they shared a glance. “Peggy says that all of the time.”

Steve had to pause. He was pretty sure there was no time for flirting. But was that what he was doing? Bucky’s dark hair _was_ gorgeous in the shimmer of the sun and his alert eyes had an odd glow that Steve wanted to lose himself in.

And then Steve realized that Sam was talking and he had missed whatever he’d suggested. Steve squared his shoulders. He’d have to put whatever this was aside a little while longer.

He didn’t notice the tiny smile Bucky aimed his way for just a fraction of a moment. The next time he looked at Bucky, it was gone, replaced by the grim set of his lips and the tension woven into his forehead.

“Without our Weavings,” Bucky said carefully, “I don’t think we stand a chance.”

“Funny you should mention that.” A fairy popped up near Bucky’s elbow, flying until she was eye level. Her brown hair trailed behind her and her wings caught the colors of the sun’s rays. “I’m Jane,” she introduced herself. “And everything you think you know about us is, well, wrong.”

The tension in Bucky’s forehead increased as he met Jane’s gaze. “I don’t see how your taunting words help.”

Steve leaned forward, curious. He tried to remember what, if anything, Peggy had told him about the fae. Nothing came to mind, as though their existence was even more of a lie than he’d thought of the elves.

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and recited, “Direct descendants of Odin by way of his interest in a tree spirit, you gained his displeasure when you started to offer your loyalties to his son, Loki.” He leveled his look at the elder fairy.

Steve nudged Bucky in the side. “You’re still so dismissive, even after all this time with Clint and Natasha?”

Bucky shook his head. “There’s really not much more to it than that, I would assume.”

“Once upon a time, that would have been--mostly--the truth,” Jane agreed. Her voice grew soft, as though speaking the words loudly would physically harm her. The rest of her brethren flew up around her, surrounding Steve and Bucky and the others with their glittering wings as she spoke. “The fae you speak of died off hundreds of years ago, when a half elf by the name of Alexander Pierce hunted down and killed every last one of our ancestors.”

As one, the fae bowed their heads, and as one, they sang a name that Steve couldn’t understand to the sky. Steve couldn’t help but bow his head too, grieving for a people he’d only just learned of and would never meet. Even with the sun beating down on his skin, Steve’s arms had goosebumps as he realized that they were all on the cusp of that very type of extinction if they couldn’t figure out how to defeat Pierce.

Jane’s sharp eyes took in each of the group of outsiders in turn, holding Steve’s gaze for a beat longer before turning back to Bucky. “Say what you will about Loki, but when our ancestors were savagely destroyed, he took notice. Though he was unable to do away with Pierce due to the ancient bindings between the interactions of gods and the inhabitants of this plant, he rebirthed our people. Gave us a second chance. Brought us home.”

“I have never heard this before,” Bucky mumbled, but he, too, didn’t raise his voice, and his protest sounded like a reflex.

“No.” The elder fairy spoke now, his great wings far more beautiful than any of the others, almost painful to look at as the sun struck them. “While your ancestors were busy trying to evade the humans, ours were fighting a battle they could not flee from. It is no surprise that our true history was lost, exactly the way Pierce had hoped for.”

“In the old tales,” Jane continued after a moment, “which we are only now beginning to understand, our ancestors spoke of the Elven Weavings. It seems as though there might be a physical location from which all Weavings were derived.”

Bucky’s voice was still nothing more than a whisper, but the sudden note of hope was unmistakable. “You think you know where. You think it might be the answer.”

“Yes, I think and again, I think. I _know_ nothing, unfortunately, but we have been working hard. And the idea that he could destroy us again…” Jane winced. “No, it doesn’t sit well with any of us. We will share our knowledge, if you truly believe you are capable of stopping him. If, even after hearing what he has been capable of, you think that you are his match.”

Wanda didn’t miss a beat. Her eyes flashed. “I am. And they are. We refuse to let him rewrite history in his favor again.”

Pietro stood next to her, partially obscured in the blur of shimmering wings. “Please, help us so that we can help you.”

Bucky nodded, drawing himself up. “On my honor, I won’t rest until Pierce is dead.”

Steve swallowed, unsure whether he would destroy the gravity of the situation by speaking, but he couldn’t hold back. “I will fight for you until my last breath,” he promised, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The entirety of the fae turned, until everyone was looking at him. Even Lucky poked her head up as though surprised to hear his voice.

Their eyes bore holes through him, and he tensed, expecting to have to defend his words, to defend the promise he had sworn as surely as he had written it in his blood.

“Steve.” Bucky had an odd expression on his face, like he’d seen something he couldn’t quite understand. “Your eyes are glowing.”

Steve blinked. He couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his reflection, but he was positive they didn’t glow.

“They weren’t just a few minutes ago,” Sam said. His face was a mirror of Bucky’s, concern written into the lines of his forehead. “Were they?”

Scott shook his head as Wanda said something quietly to Sharon. The fae surrounded Steve while making space for the elder fairy. He flew to Steve’s height, a hand resting on his chin as he considered him.

“This is quite interesting.”

Steve locked eyes with the elder, squaring his shoulders.

“Have you noticed anything else unusual recently?” The questions came one after another as the fairy circled Steve a few times. “Colors that seemed off? Heard any voices that weren’t there?” He stopped a foot from Steve’s face.

Now that he mentioned it, his wings seemed to shine with an indescribable brilliance, like a sky crowded with dragonflies of every color. Steve nodded once.

“Well, there we go. I think he’ll do nicely, don’t you, Jane?”

“Do for what?” Steve asked, torn between demanding a better explanation and giving her time to explain herself.

Jane brushed aside the question and considered Steve, speaking to the Elder fairy. “I suppose he’s the best chance we’ll have. Well, come on then. We’ve a lot to go through and not nearly enough time.”

Sam scoffed. “Sounds like the sort of odds Steve appreciates.”

Scott managed a laugh off of that while Steve let himself be lead towards the tree in the exact middle of the clearing. He glanced back at Bucky, who was still staring at him as though he’d grown a third eye.

Steve wished, not for the first time, to go back to shuffling through the waters with Sam and looking for food. This time, the realization blossomed that he wouldn’t have met Bucky and Wanda and Pietro. That Pierce would be out there trying to destroy everything while he was still blissfully unaware.

Steve shook his head and set his jaw. He pushed back the thousands of questions that tried to crawl out of his mind, tried to work their way out of his mouth. Would the fae do something to change him? Were these changes permanent?

It didn’t matter.

Steve was certain he was right where he was supposed to be.

 

*

 

The thing was, Jane explained, that no one had first hand experience with human and elven bonds anymore. By exterminating the original fae who had been the original facilitators of the practice, Pierce had ensured that there was a missing link between connecting humans and elves once again.

It made the hairs on Steve’s arms stand up yet again as he considered the ruthless detachment Pierce seemed to possess.

“What we’ve been able to piece together is the idea that human and elves were meant to intermingle, that it was a mutually beneficial partnership,” Jane said, teaching her odd class of humans and elves and fae.

Steve spared a thought for how they must all look, sitting spread between leaves and mushrooms, listening to the tiny fairy in front of them discuss everything that had been discovered to this point.

“Humans certainly didn’t seem to think that way,” Bucky muttered from his spot next to the sapling. His face was half shaded by the young branches and tiny new leaves. “What evidence have you ‘discovered’ to prove otherwise?”

Jane nodded, as if she expected that. “We’ve recovered ancient texts when we sent out expeditions to the old cities and-”

“Wait.” Wanda’s voice broke through the clearing, a slightly shrill edge to it that had Steve turning to look. She was red in the cheeks. “You _know_ where the old cities are?”

Jane’s wings seemed to pause midair for a moment before resuming their normal beat. Some of the nearby fae started to mutter, most notably Clint and Natasha.

“You’ve never told us that,” Natasha whispered. Steve could hardly make out her words, but they were cold and furious.

“You’ve said specifically that the locations were lost to time,” Clint added.

Sensing his upset, perhaps, Lucky raised her head from where she had been resting near the rocks and made an inquiring yip of sound.

Jane’s nod was sad and slow. “Yes. I’m sorry. We’ve kept the expeditions very small in the hopes that no one would be tempted to desecrate potential discoveries.”

The fae buzzed with questions around Steve until the elder fairy raised a hand.

“Do not be mad with her,” he said, his presence as large as if he filled the clearing. “It was a decision I made many decades ago. It is something that can be discussed after this crisis has passed. Do I make myself clear?”

There were still a few murmurs, but the majority of the fae agreed.

“Where are they? That’s where Pierce is going,” Bucky said flatly, staring at Jane. “That’s where we need to go. Now.”

Jane met his gaze with a shake of her head. “Not _now_ , and you know that. Pierce will destroy us all. We must focus on recovering your magic if you wish to stand a chance against him.”

“Then let’s get to the point,” Pietro said. He held up his gray hands. “How?”

“Does it have anything to do with the way Steve’s eyes were glowing?” Bucky jerked his head towards Steve as he spoke. “Is he not… human?”

Steve considered Bucky’s words. He remembered so little of his father, who had passed when he was a young child, and his mother had fallen ill just a few years later. No one had ever said anything but how nice and helpful his parents had been, that it was a shame they were gone. He thought of their graves, buried under the floods, and his heart ached.

“As I was saying, what our studies indicate is that a human, bonded with an elf, might begin to tap into a lower level of potential.” Jane gestured curtly to Steve. “With enough contact between the two, the human may be able to access a lower level of magic that could assist the elven Weaving.”

“They never mentioned this in any of my classes,” Pietro said. “What proof have you gotten?”

“I admit that everything I say is theoretical,” Jane replied. “This, right now, is the closest I’ve gotten to being able to test my theory.”

Steve sat, listening to their words with half an ear. Had his time spent huddled for warmth with Bucky really done this to him? Some sort of bond? Would it fade when they defeated Pierce and Bucky left to go back to his palace?

His stomach flipped in an odd way when he considered that Bucky _would_ leave. Bucky’s words to Steve hadn’t been all pleasant, but he had dressed Steve’s wounds, protected him during the elven attack, held him close when he was feverish. He could have ordered Wanda or Pietro to do any of that; they certainly seemed to look to him as their leader.

Perhaps, Steve decided as he chanced a glance at Bucky, he was just lonely. Before the floods, he had dedicated most of his time to learning his craft, content to let Sam’s joy of finding and marrying Scott and the exhaustion of his work carry him through the occasional moments of longing.

And he’d never met someone like Bucky before. Of course he hadn’t; he’d never met an elf before. Steve could almost hear Peggy’s gentle chiding that he was never content with what was in front of him.

He blew out a breath as Jane spoke, still only focused on the thought that they needed to defeat Pierce and that Bucky would go after they did that.

“Wait. Wait.” Pietro held up a hand, breaking Steve’s thoughts. “None of this sounds like it will _fix_ a broken Weaving.”

Jane nodded. “I know. But I hope that we can use the spark of potential to regenerate your full potential.”

“That almost makes sense,” Wanda murmured. She stared at her hands in interest. “If that was the case, though, don’t you think that I could just… ah, restart it myself for them?”

“It’s worth a try,” Jane agreed. She smiled brightly. “I would love it if that were the case. Just, the best I can tell, it might not work because it would overload their senses.”

“What a disaster.” Sharon shook her head as she watched, still glancing around the clearing from time to time, just taking in the whole array of beings she’d never seen before in her life. “We’ll have to be so careful.”

Bucky stood and strode to the edge of the circle, ignoring Sharon’s words. “We should set out at once, then.”

Wanda watched carefully, scanning through the trees. “Do you really suppose Pierce is gone? He could have hid just beyond the trees, hoping to lure us out.”

Jane nodded. “We will stay here tonight. Tomorrow, if we leave at the rise of the sun, we will be able to make it to the location before evening’s time.”

Steve caught Sam’s eye as they looked around the fairy circle. Though there was plenty of space to stand and move, sleeping was going to be an odd arrangement.

With a shrug, Sam got up. “Their barrier seems strong enough to keep Pierce out. Let’s take this chance to rest well.”

“I have a feeling we won’t get the chance again, yeah,” Scott agreed. He grabbed Sam’s hand, and Steve smiled.

Steve wandered over to the small fires to help prepare dinner, focusing on the straightforward task while he tried to sort through the tumble of emotions dashing about in his mind. From the corner of his eye, he watched Bucky stand at the edge of the fairy circle. Bucky stood there until Pietro came to talk to him, and then the two of the walked to the other end of the clearing, partially hidden by the sapling in the middle.

“It’s amazing, though, to think about, isn’t it?” Sharon’s voice cut through Steve’s internal musing.

“I suppose it really is,” Steve agreed, looking over with a small smile. He’d forgotten how involved Sharon got when she took interest in a project.

“If my aunt Peggy is a half elf, do you suppose that means I’m part elf too?” Sharon asked, dropping her voice lower. “Can you imagine?”

Steve considered the idea. “That seems reasonable. It’s incredible the things we don’t know about our own ancestors.” He bowed his head for a moment, thinking of the Cult of the Undying that Bucky had described. “Although I wish I didn’t know about certain parts.”

“That’s not true.” Sharon touched Steve on the arm, just a bit of physical contact to drive the point of her words home.

Steve stood as though he’d been burned. “No. You’re absolutely right. Because now that I know about it, I will do my best to make sure it never happens again.”

“Exactly.” Sharon offered a warm smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” Her smile turned conspiratorial as she nudged closer and said, “So tell me about this Bucky fellow.”

At the mention of Bucky’s name, Steve glanced over towards where Pietro and Bucky were still talking. His cheeks went pink as he realized Sharon’s implication. “I don’t think there’s anything to tell, if I’m being honest.”

Sharon put her hands on her hips. “There’s something in the way that he looks at you. For Odin’s sake, you seem almost _happy_ when you look at him.”

“You jest,” Steve tried, but he couldn’t help laugh. “You’ve got me, Sharon. I think he’s handsome.”

“And you like him,” she finished, as though it were a fact.

Steve paused. Was it a fact? Bucky seemed to hate humans on principle, but his actions had written a different tale, hadn’t they? He put a hand on the side of his head. “It’s a mess, whatever it is. All of this is a mess.”

“It is,” Sharon agreed.

“And it seems quite pointless to speak to him in that manner when the world could effectively end tomorrow,” Steve continued.

“Perhaps it becomes all the more important?” Sharon followed Steve’s gaze across the clearing.

Steve didn’t know what to say. He was quiet as they ate, quiet as they prepared their blankets to sleep, arranging themselves away from the tiny leaves and mushrooms that housed the fae as they, too, prepared for sleep. He picked a spot close to the rocks. Though the fae magic seemed strong, he couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving his friends closer to a potential attack.

“Move over, will you?”

Steve looked up to see Bucky standing over him. He looked to his right. There was just a bit of space before Sam and Scott’s blankets. Steve moved across the dirt, giving Bucky the space next to the rocks.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, before turning over and pulling up his blanket to sleep.

Steve watched Bucky’s sleeping form for awhile, listened to the calm that settled across the clearing. Everyone fell asleep as the night insects and birds called and chirped from the trees, the lullaby of the forest. After a little while longer, Steve moved back over the dirt, until he was closer to Bucky.

Not close enough to touch, but close enough to hear his even breathing and to wonder if Bucky chose the spot because he, too, wanted to be the first target if Pierce attacked or if he, perhaps, wanted to be closer to Steve.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by [KazablanKa](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/) in this chapter! Be prepared; it's AWESOME.
> 
> Also if you need warnings about blood, check the end notes. It's nothing big!

#  10

 

The sun broke through the leaves as they walked, determined to scatter the last remnants of the cool morning. The group was now more of a procession, Bucky thought as they made their way through the forest, following the sun’s path across the sky and angling slightly south.

“You can go ahead if you want,” Bucky muttered to Steve, who was hanging at the back with him.

Steve shot him a look, one Bucky was beginning to recognize as his “not about to happen” look. With one eyebrow raised and his lips set in a petulant line, Steve shook his head.

“Jane is leading the fae at the front of the line. Wanda has point in the middle. Which leaves me to cover if there’s an attack back here.” Steve touched his sword once as they made their way through the forest.

Bucky grumbled, a scathing reply on his lips, but Steve put up a hand and cut him off.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t help, Bucky, and you know that.” Steve lifted his shoulders, the smallest shrug Bucky had ever seen. “You’ve been getting by since I’ve met you.”

Bucky shook his head and clenched his fists. But he didn’t look down to see if they moved at his commands, because he had to duck a low hanging branch. He glared at the tree. “Getting by, sure. That’s about all.”

Steve held one of the branches back so Bucky could pass through and said nothing else. Bucky mumbled a thanks. At least Steve wasn’t trying to cheer him up with useless words. 

They walked without speaking for a long while after that. Bucky passed the time listening to the birds, keeping an ear out for the sharp crack of a stick or branch. The trees had thinned out quite a bit this far from the river, but the brush did its best to fill in the wider spaces.

After their brief pause for lunch, they hurried on. The trees seemed to change before Bucky’s eyes, the leaves taking on a deep emerald hue until they sparkled like gems in the sunlight.

Bucky reached out and touched a leaf, half expecting his fingers to come away wet. The large leaf shimmered, but his fingers were dry. Bucky glanced at Steve, who was looking at his own fingers, a nearby leaf trembling from his furtive touch.

“Old fae magic,” Bucky muttered, and Steve nodded like he knew what Bucky was talking about. “I guess at some point you just have to give up trying to figure out what’s a story and what’s the truth.”

Steve nodded again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you about the life I led just a few weeks ago.” He paused, sidestepping a giant root that twisted on the ground in front of them. “It might as well be another lifetime.”

Bucky huffed out a breath. Steve was still a human. It didn’t matter that his eyes were glowing, reflecting the green glint of the leaves. He still could never understand what Bucky had gone through since Pierce showed up. But the way Steve shouldered every demand thrown at him spoke of his tenacity. Bucky had to give him that.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “Same.”

Before he could say a word more, Sam appeared from behind one of the trees ahead. “Jane says we’re almost there,” he called out without raising his voice too much. He jogged a few steps closer to meet them. “These trees are something else.”

“Kind of reminds me of the daggers we found before, doesn’t it?” Steve asked Sam.

Bucky let their conversation fade to background noise. He inspected another tree as they passed. The thick trunk was big enough to hide two people behind it, and its giant leaves were an opulent green, shining as though the sun had granted them her favor. 

How the sun was able to break through the cover of the dense growth to shine on their boots was, of course, a mystery of its own. Bucky blamed the fae.

The began to pass brambles wound around the trees in careful, consistent patterns. Bucky narrowed his eyes at a particularly thick patch that they had to duck down to nearly the ground to wriggle under without being stuck by tough thorns.

Everyone moved one after another in a line now, staying close and not spreading out like they had earlier in the day. 

At least Pierce would have a hell of a time showing up here, Bucky thought as he fell in step behind Sam, Steve crowding him from behind in the sudden lack of space.

“How did the brambles grow this way?” Steve asked, almost pressed up against Bucky’s back as he ducked to avoid the vines. “They don’t seem to have an end or a beginning.”

Bucky shook his head, careful not to catch his hair on an overhanging thorn. “Fae magic.” He shrugged.

“Not very helpful,” Sam called from just ahead of them.

With nothing else to add, Bucky kept silent and kept as much space between himself and Sam as he could manage. The brambles thickened again and their woven patterns became more intricate, the gemstone leaves sparkling above them.

It was almost exactly like being in a dream. Bucky shook his head again, a sudden effort to keep the dreams out of his memories. It was too late, of course.

“I’ve been here before,” Bucky whispered. His heart pounded. “In a dream.” He didn’t look at Steve. It was bad enough to admit it, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and he took a deep breath.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” Steve offered quietly.

“I had the dream for a week before Pierce showed up.” Bucky pivoted after Sam, avoiding the reaching tendrils of thorns. 

Impossible amounts of light shone through the thick cover of leaves and brambles woven across the top of the sudden clearing like a delicate, dangerous roof. The fae and Lucky had moved to one side and the humans to another as Bucky and Steve emerged from the trees.

Bucky kept his eyes on the dirt for a moment, but Steve’s little gasp and quiet “oh” had him looking up to what he knew would be there.

In the middle of the clearing was a throne of brambles. The back of it extended upwards until it was woven into the canopy above and vines trailed down, decorating the sharp throne in flowers of pink and pale purple and blue.

It was beautiful.

It was dripping with what appeared to be fresh blood.

“Just like my dream,” Bucky muttered, the words as numb as his fingers.

Silence hung as heavy as the giant leaves. Not Clint, Natasha nor Jane made a sound as they slowly explored the space. Wanda and Pietro exchanged a glance and Bucky didn’t bother to look at the other humans. He knew they were just as surprised as he was. 

Lucky cocked her head and lifted her snout, sniffing the air. 

Looking past Lucky, Bucky realized Jane wasn’t watching the throne like everyone else. She was watching Steve. In his dream, he’d always been the only one in the clearing. He stepped forward, just like he had done when he’d been sleeping in his beautiful room in the palace, a lifetime ago.

A drop of blood splattered against the dirt, and Bucky took a huge, deep breath. At the same time, he couldn’t help the tiny smile that threatened to form on his lips. Of course he’d had no idea why he was there in the dream, but now, it made sense.

Honestly, he couldn’t quite distinguish between reality and make believe, not now, not surrounded by the flowers and vines and leaves. Just like a dream, he wasn’t able to feel the tips of his fingers, wasn’t able to tell exactly where his hands were. 

“What is he doing?” Sharon’s whisper floated by on the wind, and Bucky kept walking to the middle.

“Bucky!” Steve called out, crossing the space in three giant strides, one hand on his sword and the other reaching for Bucky. “Be careful.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Jane reach out before stopping herself. She looked puzzled, but she nodded, a brush of glitter against the background of trees and thorns. He readjusted his gaze on the throne.

They didn’t have the traditional fae sacrifice of a squirrel with them, but the blood on the altar was fresh. There was no time to worry about who or  _ what _ had been here recently. Deeply ancient magic was already at work, and it reverberated in Bucky’s bones as he took another step closer to the throne.

“Do you trust me, Steve?” Bucky asked, turning to meet Steve’s eyes. The glow was still there. If anything, it was brighter, just another odd reality blending into a dream world. 

“I do.” Steve’s words rang out, so assured and confident despite the unnatural pulse running through the very air around them.

“I’ve given you no reason to trust me besides a common enemy.” Bucky didn’t drop his gaze, didn’t flinch as he spoke.

Steve didn’t back down. “I trust you.”

Well, good. Bucky needed that sort of reckless support if they were going to take down Pierce. And he needed his Weaving back.

Bucky reached out and grabbed Steve’s hand. Everything was instinct now, because in the dream, he’d reach out by himself and touch the thorns. 

But this time, he reached with Steve, slicing their palms against the thorns. Steve hissed in pain, biting his tongue to keep from shouting out. Bucky’s hand was numb to the damage. 

It was as though he’d stepped out of his body and was watching from the canopy of thorns above as the blood ran from his hand onto Steve’s palm. They bled the same color.

The ancient magic thrummed like a string wound too tight, about to burst under the tension, and Bucky watched himself hold onto Steve’s hand.

Their blood mixed together and feel to the dirt, and for an instant, the clearing flashed white, blindingly white.

The gray on Bucky’s hands began to seep out, trailing from his fingertips like vapors of smoke. 

Pain exploded in Bucky’s hands, a fire that threatened to fry every inch of his skin and leave his hands in cinders. He didn’t know if he screamed or for how long, but for a moment that felt like an eternity, he burned.

Slowly, the white in his vision began to dissipate as the clearing came back into focus. Bucky’s head was in Steve’s lap, and everyone was crowded around him.

“How do you feel?” Steve asked, concern written into his creased forehead. 

“What exactly happened?” Sam demanded, about to push Bucky aside to make sure that Steve was ok.

Jane flitted closer. “Can you describe what happened?”

“Give him a damned moment,” Clint muttered, waving everyone back. “The kid needs some air.”

“I’m older than you,” Bucky ground out, waiting for the clearing to stop spinning. “Give me a minute. For Odin’s sake.”

His fingers--he could track every movement. He brought his hand to his face and stared, his skin no longer gray and mottled.

“Please,” Bucky managed against a fresh surge of pain. But he could  _ feel _ the pain. “I need water.”

Steve fished at his side and came up with a waterskin, opening it and pressing it against Bucky’s lips

Bucky leaned away and shook his head. “Just pour it into my palm, now.” He looked up and met Pietro’s eyes over Steve’s shoulders. Pietro was damn near vibrating, the intensity of the moment not lost on him.

The cool liquid splashed into his hand, and Bucky had to close his eyes for a moment. The slippery wetness of the water dancing on his palm was everything he’d missed. He took a steadying breath and concentrated. 

The magic stirred in the clearing, quieter this time, as though it was simply a curious child. Bucky concentrated and called for the magic to come closer, to come  _ back _ to him.

_ We can play again? _ asked the water in his hand, and the relief that flooded through Bucky’s body had Steve holding him closer, asking him if he was ok.

Bucky tentatively reached for the first strand of water, and began to Weave it into a simple line.

“It worked,” he whispered, sending the Weaving out into the air, watching the little trail of water do as he asked. “It worked. By the gods.”

He looked up at Steve.

Steve’s eyes weren’t glowing any more. But he didn’t have time to comment, because behind Steve, Pietro stared at Bucky’s Weaving like he was drowning and Bucky was his last chance at life. 

“How did you do it?” Pietro whispered, unable to keep the tremble out of his voice.

Next to Pietro, Wanda squeezed his hand.

Jane frowned as she followed Steve’s gaze to Bucky. “It was the connection. They made a bond of trust.”

Lucky sniffed at the air and growled lightly. 

“Seeing as we don’t know what came through here before us, we might consider moving faster, yes?” Clint glanced around the trees, but nothing stirred.

“How did you know what to do?” Jane continued to question Bucky. 

He dismissed his Weaving, confident in the warmth that lingered in his fingers. He could call it back when he needed it. Bucky sat up straighter, pulling away from Steve. “I had a vision before… before everything was destroyed.”

Pietro bounced on the balls of his feet. “I didn’t have a vision. Does that mean--”

He couldn't finish the sentence and Bucky didn’t blame him.

Jane flew over from Bucky to Pietro and regarded him thoughtfully. “Any blood oath ought to work, especially with the power these two just released. Can’t you feel it?”

Pietro nodded. “It’s making my skin crawl.”

Wanda already had her Weaving active, and she floated a few feet off of the ground. Bucky suspected it helped burn off some of the anticipation.

“Does it have to be a human?” Sharon spoke up from where she, Sam, and Scott were clustered. She met Pietro’s eyes. “Because, I’m willing to help, if you’d like.” She gave a shy smile, and Pietro bounded over.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

Sharon looked from Bucky to Steve. She glanced up at Wanda. “Yes. But my eyes aren’t glowing, are they?”

“It’ll have to be alright.” Pietro’s words were a plea to the gods. It had to work.

“Ok.” Sharon set her shoulders. “Uh. What do we do next?”

“Approach the altar,” Jane instructed, following them from a few feet back. “The vows you speak don’t matter so much so as the promise behind them.”

“The intention invokes the gods,” Bucky muttered. He had sat up, but he was still so close to Steve. And neither of them were moving away from each other. “There’s something I never thought I’d see.”

Steve was so warm, his presence a ray of sun in a world that had tried to turn Bucky’s life inside out.

“Shall we promise, uh, honor in our actions to each other?” Pietro offered.

Sharon gave him a small smile. “I promise to be honorable in my intentions with you.”

From where she floated on her Weaving, Wanda let out a soft giggle as Pietro’s cheeks went red.

“I, too, promise my honor to you,” he said, meeting Sharon’s eyes. 

Her eyes didn’t glow, but they clasped their hands together like Bucky and Steve had done. Pietor, his hand trembling, reached forward, cutting their hand on another thorn in the throne.

Lucky started to howl as the magic in the clearing began to swirl again, humming to a different cadence than it had done for Bucky.

Steve jumped to his feet, Bucky only a second behind him as they stood back to back, scanning the clearing. 

Next to them, Pietro dropped to his knees, his hand pressed against the earth.

The ground beneath Bucky’s feet began to vibrate and Pietro whooped in excitement, even as Lucky kept howling. Sam and Scott had their swords out as Wanda floated higher in the clearing to try to see from a better vantage point. The canopy of thorns stopped her from going above the treelines.

“Something is out there,” Natasha said. She flew up and around a tree, looking in the direction Lucky was staring in. “I think there’s several of them, whoever they are.”

“How does anyone else know about this place?” Clint groused. “When this is all over, you’re going to tell me  _ everything _ you know about secret places, Jane. I swear to Loki.”

“No one else knows,” Jane whispered. She seemed to be bracing herself.

Bucky flexed his fingers, aware of every movement and elated. Without a larger water source, he was still less helpful in a fight, but Pietro had his Weaving back and there was nothing but earth around them.

No matter what came through the trees and brambles, they were ready.

Only, the being that descended from between the trees and landed lightly on the dirt was beyond Bucky’s words.

“What?” Dressed in a green tunic woven with gold, he brushed back black hair and smirked. “Have you all never seen a God before?” 

No one spoke, though Jane’s mouth was open and she stared hard at the self-proclaimed god who walked to the throne of thorns. Bucky shared her shock; was that  _ Loki  _ in front of them?

“My goodness. Not even one peep?” Loki sat on the throne, the brambles moving out of his way. “I suppose I can make an exception. I shan't be so lenient next time.”

“You’re supposed to convince me that you’re truly a god?”   
  
Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised that Steve was the one to speak up. Steve still had his sword out, turned defensively as he took a step towards where Loki sat.

The clearing wasn’t large; Steve was closer to Loki than Bucky was comfortable with, but there wasn’t anything he could say or do that Loki couldn’t do faster. Bucky swallowed, waiting with everyone else for Loki’s reply.

“Yes. You’d think if you were going to come and take your vows on my throne that you’d take a moment to appreciate what I’ve allowed to happen here.” Loki tilted his head and considered Steve. “Very curious, indeed, for a human.”

“We meant you no harm.” Steve didn’t take another step forward, but he didn’t back down either.

“A tenacious human. My favorite.” Loki’s glee bled into his words, and it pricked up the tiny hairs on Bucky’s arms. 

_ Odin help us, _ Bucky thought,  _ but there’s a reason I don’t trust the fae, worshipping this sort of sprite for a god. _ He put a hand on the waterskin Steve had given him. 

They couldn’t fight Pierce; how could they fight a god?

“There’s no need to prepare for a fight,” Loki soothed, though his grin spoke a second motive. “Truly, I’m thrilled that you elves and humans are setting your differences aside in these trying times.”

Sam and Scott had advanced to where Bucky stood, both of them tensed and ready to back up Steve. Even Sharon had her hand on her hip, presumably ready to pull out a hidden dagger.

Jane flittered closer, followed by Clint and Natasha. Lucky sat where she had been, her eyes never straying from Loki’s throat.

“The truth of the matter is…” Loki shrugged as though he hadn’t a care in the world, and his body fuzzed translucent for a moment. “Ah. Yes. I’m not actually here. I can’t be. No one has used the Horn of Summoning. Yet.”

Bucky stiffened at the mention of the Horn. Pietro sucked in a breath from somewhere behind him. 

“Well, I might as well say it. Pierce has found the Horn.” Loki set his intense gaze on the fae. “As you are well aware of my previous encounter with this distasteful individual, it should come as no surprise that I’d prefer for him to not learn how to use it. I can’t do much farther from this seat of power, but I can provide a location for you to find him.”

“How can we trust you?” Steve asked, calm.

“Steve!” Natasha hissed. “This is  _ not _ the time.”

“Alas. It’s simply the word of a god versus the potential end of the world. I do see how that’ll make it a difficult choice.” Loki leveled a flat look at Steve. “Put away your sword. Your husband over there doesn’t want to see you killed off so soon.” Steve turned, confused, even as Loki added, “And you haven’t even consummated the union! What a shame!”

“Bucky’s not my husband,” Steve growled, and even though Bucky knew the venom in Steve’s voice was directed at Loki, even though he knew they hadn’t so much as had a conversation where they weren’t growling at each other, something still twinged against his heart, a confirmation that Steve didn’t want anything to do with Bucky when this was all over.

“Oh, young love.” Loki smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Are you quite ready to listen now?”

“You honor us with your presence and knowledge,” Jane finally managed, her voice shaking only at the last word. 

Bucky realized he couldn’t blame her. After everything she’d revealed about the nature of the fae, Loki was truly their God.

“Good. I like your style,” Loki said, his face softening for a moment as he watched his creations fly closer to him. “I’m glad to see you all well. I hope to continue this trend.”

Jane couldn’t say another word. Even Clint seemed stunned to be this close to their literal father and creator.

“Now that I have your attention,” Loki continued, motioning for everyone to stand close and listen, “Let’s discuss how we’re going to take Pierce down once and for all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: very short blood ritual involving cutting a palm on a thorn to release a few drops of blood.
> 
> Reblog KazablanKa's artwork [ here!!!](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/post/179455612519/the-third-artwork-for-my-collaboration-with)


	11. Chapter 11

#  11

 

Compared to the glittering green leaves of Loki’s proclaimed throne room, the rest of the forest passed by dull and bland, almost lifeless in color though the sounds of birds and wind rang between the trees as vibrant as always.

Steve supposed Loki created the dramatic space for just that reason.

“He seemed like he meant well, but I still don’t know how much to trust him,” Steve told Bucky as they gathered firewood for camp in the evening. 

Now that they had a plan and a map and directions dictated by Loki himself, the end to their journey was a crystalized point in time, a reality that  _ would _ happen. Steve picked up a few smaller sticks for kindling and brought them to the pile before heading back towards Bucky.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a twist waiting for us.” Bucky grabbed a branch off the ground and handed it to Steve to break under his boot. “I don’t know if he’s capable of being helpful for more than a minute.”

“You’re so angry about him, and about humans, and about everything,” Steve noted just loud enough for Bucky to hear. He positioned the branch Bucky gave him and brought his boot down, cracking it neatly in two. 

Bucky’s glare was swift and hot. “You might never have had a decent history lesson in your life until now, but I’d like to imagine that you’re smart enough to figure out where my hesitation to interact with humans and the fae come from.”

“Humans, yes.” Steve wasn’t phased. He nodded as he took another branch from Bucky to break into smaller sticks. “But Loki’s done nothing to you.”   


“Not personally. But there are stories,” Bucky finally said, grumbling and turning to look for other wood.

Steve waited until Bucky turned back and leveled a look at him. “And stories, even stories that you think are true, can be proven wrong by mysterious men with braids and gold glittering in their hair. I think you need a better reason, or you need to stop fighting every new person who shows up in your life.”

Bucky scoffed. “I’m absolutely certain that if I were to speak to Sam about you, he’d say something similar. After all, I showed up and what did you do?”

“I didn’t try to fight you.” Steve’s fingers paused, hovering for a moment over a branch before he grabbed it. “I think. Truth be told, I wasn’t feeling that great when we first met.” He gestured to his healed leg.

A sudden flash of a memory of waking up with his head between Bucky’s legs jumped into Steve’s mind. At the time, he’d been so thankful for the rest and reprieve of pain that it hadn’t occurred to him how intimate the situation had been, how close Bucky had let him in.

When he looked over at Bucky again, Steve would have sworn the tips of his ears were flushed pink.

But it could have been the setting sun on his skin, filtering purple-pink light through the thicket of trees. After another day of travel, they appeared to be nearing the edge of the forest.

As he brought the stack of wood back to their campsite, Steve didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he’d never really been out of the forest in his entire life. Any small amount of travel he’d done was up and down along the river. The same as any of the humans; why would they risk death in the forest to explore when their numbers were so small? 

He thought of Peggy and the children, and wondered how excited they’d all be to have a reason to explore beyond the handful of towns that they knew.

If they could defeat Pierce. 

Loki seemed confident about them defeating him, especially when he’d looked at Steve and Bucky. The way Loki had paused after staring at Steve’s eyes made him wish for a mirror.

Sam had assured Steve that they weren’t glowing anymore.

During dinner, Sharon asked Pietro about his Earthweaving, and after everyone had finished, he moved to the edge of the campsite to give a demonstration. Steve fell in behind Sam and Scott and they passed Clint and Natasha already bedded down on Lucky’s back, resting for their turn on watch.

Pietro pushed his sun-bleached blonde hair back behind his ear as he knelt and placed his hand on the ground as if to worship. From the way the tension in his shoulders and back released when the ground started to rumble underneath everyone, it was clear as day to Steve that Pietro had been nervous that his Weaving returning had only been temporary.

The rumbling grew louder and rougher until a patch of earth split up into the air, forming a spike a few feet tall.

“The earth is much heavier than the others,” Wanda explained to the little audience. “It’ll never go into the air like a chain, but he can send out his Weaving incredibly far.”

Bucky tensed for just a moment next to Steve, like he wanted to say something but kept quiet. The ground rumbled again, and Pietro closed his eyes, his hand still on the ground as he concentrated until the vibrations were so minute that Steve almost lost track of them.

Steve closed his eyes and the tremors seemed to flow into his body, so soft and subtle that he had a sudden urge to shake like a wet wolf. He wanted to climb a tree or jump into the air, anything to get him off of the ground.

Pietro lifted his hand from the dirt and the vibrations stopped. Steve was unable to hold back his sigh of relief and Bucky turned to glare at him.

Only Bucky wasn’t glaring. He stared at Steve, curious. 

“What happened?” Bucky asked, his tone strangely neutral.

Steve shrugged. “I didn’t like the way the ground vibrated. Felt weird.” 

Bucky pursed his lips and paused. Again, Steve got the impression that Bucky wanted to say something and was holding back. This time, though, Bucky decided to say whatever was on his mind. “Usually when Pietro probes, people don’t notice it unless they’re very attuned to the person.”

“You know exactly how long I’ve known him,” Steve said, turning Bucky’s conversation around in his mind. Maybe it had something to do with him knowing Peggy, somehow, he decided. 

The sun’s last rays dipped down below the horizon and the evening’s dusk darkened, the fire beckoning everyone back to the campsite. The moon would rise over the trees, no clouds around to block its quiet light.

They slept under the soft stars, everyone lying on blankets. When Steve lay down at one end of the campsite, he couldn’t help but smile when a few minutes later, Bucky came over, silent as he spread his blanket on the dirt and lay down near Steve. Whether it was the comfort of a pattern they had fallen into or because he wanted the extra space away from the others, Steve didn’t know.

Regardless, Steve had come to enjoy Bucky’s presence near him at night, a comforting sameness when everything else was different, his old life shattered into pieces he knew he’d never be able to put back the same.

 

*

 

Steve was watching Clint and Natasha flying near Lucky’s head when Sam came up on his side 

“So,” Sam said, and Steve braced himself for questions about Loki’s plans, about the Horn of Summoning, about how absolutely insane every part of their existence was right now. “How about Bucky?”

Steve blinked a few times, instinctually glancing over towards where Bucky was walking with Wanda and Pietro. Bucky gestured while he talked. He used his hands a lot more now.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, meeting Sam’s eyes a beat too late.

“You know what I mean.” Sam kept his voice casual, but Steve could read into Sam’s concern. “He’s not exactly the most friendly elf I’ve met, though my experience is admittedly limited.”

Steve thought back to Bucky tending to his wounds. He’d been brusque and matter-of-fact about it, but he had done it himself. “I think he blames himself for a lot of what’s happening right now, if we’re being honest.” Steve held up a hand for a moment before Sam could cut him off. “I know it doesn’t excuse his rudeness. But it’s not every day you can say your actions helped contribute to the end of the world.”

Sam nodded as they walked, following Sharon and Scott who were navigating from Loki’s directions. “What could he have done differently? From my understanding, they tried to fight Pierce. From what Wanda’s told Sharon, nearly everyone they know is dead. The fact that they still tried is… well, it speaks highly of their character. But it doesn’t give him an excuse to snap at you when all you want to do is roll around with him in the dirt.”

“Sam!” Steve knew there was no point in trying to hide the heat that torched his cheeks despite the fact that the sun was hidden behind clouds. “It’s not like that, not exactly.”

“Then what is it like, Steve?” Sam kept his voice neutral, like he was commenting on the number of birds flitting through the trees. 

Steve considered Sam’s words and was silent for a long while as they walked. According to Loki’s directions, they’d be out of the forest by the afternoon. Another life event Steve had never expected to experience, let alone even considered. After all of that, where did his thoughts about Bucky even register?

“I’ll start,” Sam said after the silence stretched into many minutes. “He’s certainly easy on the eyes.”

“Hey!” Steve grinned, pointedly looking at Scott ahead of them.

Sam smiled up at his husband. “I’m married, Steve, not blind. Now it’s your turn.”

Steve went silent again. What if he was just imagining things in the way Bucky looked at him, the way Bucky chose to sleep near him every night? He let out a sigh. Sam wasn’t there to judge him. “Bucky mentioned that I was attacked by a direwolf right before I met him,” Steve admitted. He pointed to Lucky. “That direwolf, actually, before Clint charmed her or whatever the hell he did.”

“I swear to Odin, Steve. Every single time!” 

Steve glared at him, and Sam kept his outburst to a minimum as he motioned for Steve to continue.

“So maybe I was rather badly injured. He wasn’t lying when he said I couldn’t stand.” Steve took a deep breath. “Bucky and Wanda and Pietro found me. Bucky patched me up and, uh, when another elf tried to attack us, he helped me stay alive then too.”

Sam spent a good minute debating which part of the story to tackle first, before settling on an exasperated, “Do you ever not fight, Steve?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried again. “If they needed all of the allies they could get, it makes sense that he would have tended to your wounds. You wouldn’t have been any help dead.”

“He held me that night, kept me warm.” Steve tried to shift through the fever-addled remembrance. Maybe he was rewriting the story to favor Bucky. “I guess you could argue that was to make sure that his hard work wasn’t for nothing.”

“I could argue that,” Sam agreed. “But you seem convinced it’s something more and that counts for something.”

“I don’t know.” Steve chanced another glance at Bucky, who was taking a sip of water, his lips wrapped around the waterskin. A flash of desire sparked in Steve’s groin and he turned away and blinked. “Yeah,” he repeated. “I just don’t know.”

Sam laughed and clapped Steve on the back. “I see that. Well, enough about the tough topics. Let’s talk about something simpler now, like the end of the world.”

 

*

 

“You two are brave for coming with.” Steve nodded to Clint and Natasha as they sat down for a short break to eat. He’d been thinking about what Jane revealed every time he caught a glimpse of them flying nearby. 

“Are you kidding?” Clint grinned. The juice of his blueberry stained his cheeks. “I’d argue we’re too stupid to know when to quit. Guy murders our entire race and we decide we’re the ones who can do something about it?”

Natasha was a touch more subdued. “Yeah. I’ve thought about it once or twice,” she admitted. “Waiting for others to do what needs to be done isn’t really my strong suit though.”

“I think that’s a common thread with everyone here,” Scott chimed in, his mouth half full. “Except me. I’m just here because my friends like to take me on deadly adventures.”

Bucky was quiet while Wanda spoke up. “It’s the only way I can think to honor everyone who was lost. Their stories need to be told.” A sardonic half-smile danced on her lips. “I don’t think they will be if Pierce has his way.”

He was quiet while Pietro recounted a story about his and Wanda’s parents. He stared off in the distance, and Steve found himself wishing he could go closer and put an arm around Bucky’s shoulders.

But what was the chance that Bucky wanted that? Steve kept his hands to himself, uncertain if it was even something he wanted himself, or if he was just putting too much consideration in the way Bucky had taken care of him. 

The conversation around him turned to what they would do when it was all over, well considered hopes and whispers of dreams of rebuilding, but Steve heard only the wind blowing between the trees.

 

*

 

“This is it, the forest’s edge.” Sharon’s otherwise calm voice wavered on the last word. 

“Show of hands,” Scott added, shifting from foot to foot. “Who here  _ isn’t _ about to step out of the forest for the first time in their lives?” 

Sam kissed Scott on the cheek and took his hand.

Pietro held up a hand. “Let us feel out the area.” He exchanged a look with Wanda, who nodded, her lips set in a firm, straight line.

Was it Steve’s imagination, or did Pietro’s face seem pale? Wanda’s hands were already glowing as she began to float up between the trees, finding a comfortable spot between a few branches and closing her eyes.

Pietro put a hand to the ground and Steve made sure to stand behind him, hoping to avoid the awful vibrations he’d felt before. Just to be safe, he took another step back, and nearly crashed into Bucky.

“Sorry,” Steve muttered, shifting to the side to give Bucky space. While Pietro and Wanda set to work, he couldn’t help but attempt some quiet conversation. “Seems like Loki’s directions have been exact to the very tree.”

Bucky shrugged. “He’s a god, so I’m not surprised. But he’s not perfect. He’s relying on us to take out Pierce.”

“I think we can do it.” Steve was shocked by how steady the words came out of his mouth were, especially because his heart still raced every time he considered what they were about to attempt.

“Yeah, well.” Bucky stared over to where Sam, Sharon, and Scott waited, Lucky sitting patiently with Clint and Natasha flitting around. “I hope you’re right, Steve.”

“Without the river nearby, how will you use your Weaving?” Steve couldn’t help but ask.

Bucky’s expression darkened like a storm cloud passing through and then he shrugged again, a practiced nonchalance. “I’ll make do with my waterskin if I have to. There’s other sources of water, too, beside the river. Ponds, maybe. Streams.”

Steve kept quiet and nodded. He knew they were all running low on water, but Loki’s explicit directions had included a stop at a supposed pond by the next nightfall.

Loki had seemed extremely confident that they wouldn’t confront Pierce until two nights from now. 

Despite Wanda and Pietro’s tentative confirmation that all was clear, stepping out of the forest gave Steve pause. It was weird how the trees just … stopped, and grass and dirt stretched out until it hit the horizon at the far edge of the world. 

The lack of tree cover had everyone on edge. Natasha and Clint stayed closer to Lucky than usual, and Sam and Sharon kept scanning out as far as they could see.

It took too long for the sun to reach the horizon and settle below their sight to force them to stop for the night. As he worked on the fire with Bucky, Steve supposed Loki had accounted for that in his directions too.

They made just the smallest bit of a fire, just enough to drive out the evening chill and warm some food. The smoke rose up to the sky, a signal that Steve felt would show every last person in the world exactly where they were. 

He stared into the flames, remembering the way the elf had sent out a lash of pure fire and how badly it had burned. And yet they still set a fire, taking the risk that he could come upon them and use the blaze against them.

From the way Pietro shifted uncomfortably and Wanda kept glancing around the edges of their tiny campsite, Steve was sure they felt the same. A few minutes later, they put out the fire, smothering it in dirt and ashes as everyone began to settle on their blankets for the evening.

Steve had the first watch of the evening. He sat at the edge of the campsite as darkness settled over the odd, treeless land. The night sky was blanketed in sparkling stars; even they seemed bigger and brighter without trees to block out part of his view. They spilled across the sky until the far edge of the horizon swallowed them up. Steve stared on and on, as far as he he could gaze, looking up into the heavens beyond his reach.

A sense of smallness settled in his chest, an unsettling knowledge that he was insignificant compared to the vast expanse of space around him. He shivered even though the night was not yet cool, struck suddenly by the thought of what would happen if they failed to confront Pierce in time.

“You’re cold?”

Bucky’s quiet voice cut across the open sky and Steve turned, somehow not startled by the question.

Steve shook his head. “You should be sleeping.” 

Bucky wasn’t even scheduled for a watch tonight; they had enough people to allow a full night’s sleep for some. But Bucky shrugged and after a minute, came and sat near Steve. He left a good foot between them. 

Something like tiny bits of lightning seemed to bounce in the silent space between them, like a cloud of lightning bugs had swirled around them. Steve couldn’t help but stare, certain he was imagining it.

The starlight reflected off the tiny golden rings in Bucky’s hair and highlighted the glow to his eyes. He was beautiful. Maybe Steve just had a crush. An end of the world crush.

Bucky still hadn’t said anything, but he turned to meet Steve’s eyes, and that odd energy sizzled between them, almost knocking Steve’s breath away. Steve blinked. He had to; he couldn’t keep looking at Bucky, not with the sky spread across them like an eternity. It left him heavy-limbed, like he was in a dream. 

If he’d been dreaming, Steve would have enjoyed the moment, would have leaned in and taken Bucky in his arms. Would had pulled him close, until their breath mingled in the lack of space between them, until their lips pressed together. Steve imagined that Bucky’s lips would be soft, and he’d kiss strong, wouldn’t hold back, wouldn’t hesitate.

The dirt beneath Steve vibrated softly, and Steve snapped his head over towards where Pietro was approaching for his turn on watch. The vibrations crawled up his back and settled like unwanted bugs along his neck. 

“You can see there’s no one around, Pietro.” Bucky spoke quietly, but he fixed Pietro with a look.

The vibrations died down and Steve caught himself from sighing in relief. He tilted his head to each side, his neck settling with a soft crack. 

Pietro kept his hair shorter than Bucky, though he looped a few sections through tiny gold rings just the same. His hair shone silver in the moonlight, easily as gorgeous as Bucky’s. 

It wasn’t the same; Steve thought Pietro was beautiful, but his voice didn’t pull at Steve’s heart the same way Bucky’s did. Steve didn’t know what to make of it, but Bucky was already heading to where they had put down their blanket rolls near the edge of the camp. He was close to Steve’s blanket, but not like Sam and Scott, whose arms were tangled.

“It’s odd out here,” Steve told Pietro. “I couldn’t imagine living out in the open like this, so far from the trees.”

Pietro nodded. He considered before adding, “The palace had large, beautiful gardens, but you could always see the forest.” 

A shadow passed over Pietro’s face as Steve turned to go.

“What is it about my Weaving that always has you ready to run?” Pietro asked. Though he barely whispered, the accusation behind the words wove itself through each one. The still night air shifted, suddenly colder.

Steve shook his head, only able to tell him the truth. “I don’t know. It feels like bugs crawling on my skin.” 

A sudden gust of wind had them both looking to the sky as dark black clouds began to blot out the starlight, foretelling of a sudden squall--not something Loki had warned them about.

Steve was already scanning the space around them. “Without trees, where do we hide?” He knew there was no place to go for cover. 

Another burst of wind rippled the grass around them, and Steve exchanged a glance with Pietro as a flash of lightning tore across the sky. The heavy rumble of thunder that followed had the others stirring from their sleep. 

Steve turned to see Bucky up and moving, striding over to them. “We’re in the middle of a damned field with no cover. Pietro, do what you can. And fast!”

In the fading starlight, Pietro pressed his lips together. “Fast is my specialty,” he joked grimly as he put both hands on the ground and began to concentrate. 

The earth began to vibrate as it pushed up in a slow, steady pace, a shelf of dirt. The next flash of lightning showed the picture of his concentration, his eyes closed and his chest heaving as he worked.

Sam and Scott made it over next, heaving the supply bags under the shelf. The rain didn’t bother to start off softly; like the lightning, it came on full force and poured down on them. Steve’s cloak began to soak through. 

Another gust of wind swirled across the land, too cold after the heat of the day. Lucky growled at the sky and shook her fur, sending water in a spray around her.

Wanda stepped in front of everyone, her hands already glowing with the working of her Weaving. “Ready, Bucky?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for a reply. She reached out with her Weaving and began to capture the gusts of wind, building them into an invisible net around them, a buffer over their heads. 

Steve wiped water out of his eyes just in time to see Bucky reaching up toward the falling rain and urging it together, working frantically to bind as many raindrops as he could reach with his Weaving. The effect left him surrounded by a beautifully woven blanket of water illuminated by the glow of Wanda’s Weaving.

Bucky closed his eyes, reaching out with his other hand, Weaving the water around them and through the lines of air Wanda was controlling. The sky lit up again, and the thunder growled as everyone huddled under the tiny shelf of dirt Pietro had formed, dry from the protective shield of water and wind.

“Wow,” whispered Scott, and Steve couldn’t help but agree. 

The wind that made it through their protective barrier whipped through Bucky’s hair, his braids streaming behind him as he bowed his head. He looked like he was reaching into himself for another wave of strength, and the next thing Steve knew, he stood up next to Bucky, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“You can do it.” Steve didn’t know where the words came from, but they were his voice, firm and confident. He repeated his vow from earlier. “I trust you.”

Bucky’s cold, water-soaked skin seemed to warm under Steve’s touch, and Bucky set his shoulders, reaching out to the rain again. His Weaving soared into the sky, jumping from raindrop to raindrop like an insect skipping across the water. 

This time, Steve was shocked at the tugging that pulled through his hands, almost like he could touch the water through Bucky’s hand. The vibration didn’t hurt like Pietro’s did. Steve did his best to surrender to the sensation and help Bucky protect the group from the whipping winds and lashing rains. 

Steve didn’t know how long they stood there, boots planted in the soft, wet dirt. With Pietro behind them and Wanda to the side, the three elves made a triangle around everyone else. 

“Too bad Loki couldn’t have predicted this,” Steve muttered, so quiet he was surprised when Bucky turned back to look at him, the barest hint of a grin on his face.

“I told you he’s only so good, didn’t I?”

Steve smiled.

In the next few minutes that could have been an hour, the rain finally began to die down. The lightning still flashed, but it had moved across the field, far down to the endless horizon, and the thunder that complained after each flash faded quieter and quieter until it was gone.

“Almost all of our supplies are dry,” Sam announced as the clouds rolled on and the moon and stars emerged once more to provide a meager amount of light.

“Almost all of  _ us _ are dry,” Sharon added. She turned to Pietro first. “Thank you. And you, Wanda and Bucky. Your quick work was breathtaking.”

Pietro fixed Sharon with a small smile. “Any time.” He paused. “Though I’d prefer not to repeat this any time soon.”

“Go lie down and rest,” Scott said as Clint and Natasha flickered around, gathering wet blades of grass and drinking the dew off of them. “I’ll take your watch, Pietro. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you.” Pietro sat down heavily next to the wall of earth he’d raised. “I only make it look easy.”

Wanda nodded, and Steve didn’t know if her pale lips were a trick of the moonlight or if she was truly that drained. She had, after all, carted him through the forest on her Weaving. Steve hoped that he was a little less work than beating off a thunderstorm.

It was a while longer before everyone had settled again. 

Steve’s arms were still wet, but until the sun came up, there was nothing to be done about that. He shook under his blanket as the night time chill mingled with the dampness to leave him miserable.

After a few minutes, something warm and solid pressed against his back, and a pair of wet arms wrapped around his own. 

“You need the heat, yes?” Bucky asked quietly, his hair falling across Steve’s side and tickling his collarbone.

Steve nodded, careless of the other humans and fairies and elves around them. He just settled into Bucky’s warmth, thankful to stop shaking. “Thank you.” In his mind, he added,  _ for everything. _


	12. Chapter 12

#  12

 

Bucky’s head hurt when he rolled over, the sun cheerfully greeting him like a hammer to a nail. For a moment, he almost believed that he’d dreamed up the storm last night, but his clothes were still damp where he’d lain and his head throbbed, a sure sign that he’d spent too much energy on his Weaving. 

Putting a palm to the ground to help ease himself into a sitting position, Bucky scanned the tiny campsite. Now that the sun was up, people were stretching out, spreading wet clothing and blankets on the grass to dry in the sun while they ate.

Clint flew by, urging Lucky to shake away from everyone else. Bucky stood up and sought out Pietro, passing by Natasha and Wanda, who were deep in conversation with Sharon.

“How’s your head?” Bucky asked.

From the way Pietro winced, Bucky didn’t have to hear his response. 

“Hell of a storm last night,” Bucky added, mindful to keep his voice quiet. “Thanks for your quick work.”

Pietro’s grin turned into a grimace. “I’ve never had to see what happens when I don’t Weave for weeks and then try to do something spectacular. I hope I never have this experience again.”

“Fair.” Bucky nodded towards Wanda. “How’s she doing? You had a chance to talk to her?”

“Yeah, when she got up. Much better than me, thank goodness. We need someone who can think clearly today.” Pietro paused and attempted another smile that only partially turned to a pained clench of the jaw. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Bucky kept moving, checking in on Sam and Scott next. Sitting next to each other, their shirts drying in the sun, Bucky had the impression he was interrupting their attempt at time together. But the alternative was talking to Steve, and if he talked to Steve, Steve might want to talk about what exactly was going on between them.

And Bucky didn’t know the answer to that, so he plopped down on the ground in front of Sam and Scott and tried a friendly smile. Scott smiled back, but Sam raised an eyebrow.

“You guys really saved our asses last night!” Scott said before Bucky could get a word out. “Thank you!”

Bucky went to reply and paused, realizing he didn’t have a good response. He bought time with a “You’re welcome,” and considered how out of place it was for him to be here, with a group of humans. A group of humans that was thanking him for saving them, instead of them trying to kill him. 

He was ready for things to go back to normal, though he had no clue what normal would look like.    
  
Then he heard Steve’s voice behind him and nearly jumped, and Sam fixed him with a look. The next thing he knew, Steve was sitting down next to him, in just his pants, his tunic spread on the grass over by the others.

Steve’s chest was really nice. Bucky had to force his gaze back to Sam, who was giving him another look. And the thick muscle of Steve’s chest, shoulders and back was still on display if he looked through the corner of his eyes.

Bucky needed some water, a few minutes to himself, and, preferably, to have never met any of these humans.

“Time to get going,” Natasha announced a moment later, and Bucky had never been so thankful for fae interference in his life.

He jumped up to see if Pietro and Wanda needed help gathering anything up, and put a hand against his head when everything spun for a second. Traveling for the day was not going to be fun. 

“Need a hand?” Steve appeared at Bucky’s side, still shirtless and smiling. “You look like shielding us from the storm taxed you quite a bit.”

Bucky grumbled near inaudibly, but there was no good way to hide his discomfort. There was also nothing Steve could  _ do _ about it, besides stand there and be something pleasant for Bucky to stare at.

The sun was relentless, not a cloud in the sky and it shone against Steve’s skin. On second thought, Bucky just wanted to close his eyes.

“I’ll carry your pack for now,” Steve said in a voice that didn’t allow for much debate, and where did that come from?

Bucky kind of liked the tone, even if he didn’t care for the words. Even though he could carry his own pack.

But Steve took it out of his hands with a firm but gentle tug, and slung it on his back, over his own. “I know you’re still capable, but humor me,” Steve added. “We all need to be at our best when we find Pierce.”

“For now.” Bucky fell in step with Steve as they made their way across the endless fields. “And if we even find him.”

Steve didn’t miss a beat. “If that’s the case, then he’ll find us. I’d prefer it the other way around.”

“Seconded!” added Clint as he flew up. “Anyone else here miss the trees? I feel naked without a leaf to rest under.”

“You are naked,” Natasha said, appearing on Steve’s other side. She noticed the slight raised eyebrow Bucky threw her way and shrugged while flying, which seemed like a move she’d perfected over the years. “Our ‘naked’ just looks different from yours.”

Bucky didn’t have to look to know Steve was grinning. 

“Learn something new every day!” Steve said, that goddamned smile laced through his words. 

Bucky was shocked to realize he kind of liked it.

“I feel like we ought to discuss our plan more,” Clint continued, looping every so often and leaving Bucky a bit dizzy. “I feel like we’ve got a lot of ‘go here and be prepared’ but not a lot of ‘here’s how we get through this alive and not impaled on some sort of shadowy stick.’”

“He’s not wrong,” Steve agreed. Bucky didn’t miss the half-guilty glance. “Pierce has already broken Weavings before. What’s to stop him from doing that again and just taking us down?”

“I’ve thought about it.” Truth be told, he hadn’t just thought about it. He’d re-lived that shattering moment time and time again, searching his memory for any pertinent details. Every single time, it came back to that solid thud and the horrible realization that he couldn’t do anything about it. “I’m going to have to be more careful.”

“That’s one way to plan.” Clint didn’t sound impressed. He looped again. “But I suppose this time we’ll be there to help distract him. Maybe if he can’t focus on one of you, he can’t do it again.”

Bucky nodded, the motion not quite as upsetting as his headache slowly faded. “We’ll just have to hope Loki had something beyond his best interests in mind.”

The conversation died down for awhile. Around midday, they came across a small pond and stopped to refill their water skins. Bucky sent out a tentative Weaving in the cold water and listened before deciding the water was as safe to drink as it would get. 

With his Weaving still active, he couldn’t help but practice a net before letting it disintegrate and fall back in the pond like a tiny rainstorm. Despite everything looming on the too far away horizon, he smiled. No matter what happened next, Pierce couldn’t take his relief at feeling complete.

So maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised when Lucky stopped abruptly, a warning growl low in her throat. She held her ground, staring straight ahead.

Bucky’s blood ran cold as the shadows ahead of them split in half and two elves rose from the shadows in a mockery of physics. They’d been standing in front of them, hidden, for who knows how long. Bucky already had one hand down to the pond, ready to activate his Weaving.

Pietro crouched with a hand to the ground and Wanda took to the skies as Sam, Sharon, and Scott slowly unsheathed their swords.

The elves strolled closer, unconcerned. Their features came into focus, and Bucky wasn’t surprised to see that it was Brock and his best buddy, Jack Rollins. He glanced behind them for Pierce. When Pierce didn’t step out from any misplaced shadows next to them, Bucky turned, scanning the space around them and tense. 

“Where’s Pierce?” 

Bucky wasn’t surprised that Steve was the one to break the silence with his straightforward words. 

“Oh, he’s around,” Brock said with a laugh. He flipped his flint in one hand like a warning. “I told him all about you, the determined human who thinks he can play on the same level as us. He was very interested.”

Brock took another step closer as Lucky growled low and deep in her throat. This close, Bucky saw that his face was covered in clawed scars that seemed to continue well down his neck and disappeared under the collar of his tunic. 

“I see you kept your little bitch of a pet,” Brock snarled at Clint, dropping his tightly controlled facade for a moment. He paused and squared his shoulders. “No matter. She couldn’t finish the job the first time, she can’t do it the second.”

Clint grumbled and reached one hand to pat a tiny spot behind Lucky’s ear. Lucky tossed her head, her eyes never leaving Brock’s face.

“What do we do, Bucky?” Pietro asked. 

Bucky wanted to growl just like Lucky, but he managed to form words instead. “They’re looking for a fight. We fight.”

Sam and Steve were already in a fighting stance, joined by Sharon and Scott. 

“Brock’s going to protect Jack until he can get to the water.” Wanda was already starting to circle to the side, ready to start the attack. “We need to stop him.”

Brock flicked his flint, setting a spark and Weaving the dancing flames into his signature fiery lash. He put his hand out, directing the flames forward.

Bucky’s Weaving was already rising out of the pond when the shadows behind Jack started to move. He pulled back, anticipating Pierce, but the shadow moved  _ away _ from him, heading toward the horizon.

The thought that maybe Brock was a distraction, that Pierce already had the Summoning Horn and was about to use it hit Bucky harder than an Earthweaver’s wall. 

“Hold them off,” he shouted, jumping to his feet and scrambling after the space that he knew in his very bones was Pierce. “Follow Wanda’s directions. Steve, follow me.”

Bucky cupped his small Weaving in his hand, careful to keep the water in his palm and ignoring the way his mind screamed at him to send Pietro after Pierce, send someone who could Weave the earth or the air. A stronger part of him knew this was the right decision. Pierce had worked through the water somehow to break his Weaving before. He needed to do it this way.

Steve fell in step beside him, the two of them running after Pierce. Brock howled in the background, but his Weaving never seared through the air toward them. Bucky didn’t look back. He knew that Wanda could keep them under control with the help of the others.

Who was the distraction now?

The shadowed figure moved at a speed that belied his age, though as he kept moving to stay ahead of Steve and Bucky, the shadows that surrounded him started to fade into the light. 

“He’s got the Horn!” Steve shouted. “What’s the plan?”

Bucky broke into a sprint. 

“Good plan,” Steve panted as he strode to catch up.

Pierce was quick, but they were quicker. Bucky tossed up a prayer to whichever of the gods might be listening and sent out his little Weaving, trying to test Pierce’s reaction.

Pierce turned and faced them and smiled, the kind smile that stopped Steve and Bucky cold. With a casual toss of the hand, Pierce batted Bucky’s Weaving to the side with his own Weaving, a dark shadow that was near impossible to keep track of as it flickered and moved. 

“Bucky!” Steve’s shout held a sudden note of panic as the Shadoweaving wrapped itself around his body, entwining his arms and legs.

Pulling his hand back, Pierce started to drag Steve closer and closer.

“He’s the one I needed,” Pierce said. Even now, his pleasant tone crawled through Bucky’s head, made him want to jump in the lake and scrub his skin. “Thank you for bringing him. A human with an affinity for elves. I was starting to think they didn’t exist anymore. That I’d never be able to use this.”

And then, even as Bucky charged forward, setting his Weaving towards Pierce again, Pierce put the horn to his lips, put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and blew.

Before the long, strange note had faded away, Bucky reached Pierce, no plan in his mind except to jump and try to tackle him to the ground. With a grunt, he leapt.

Next to Pierce, Steve stumbled, wrapped too tightly by the shadows to stay on his feet, and the three of them tumbled into a pile. They hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Bucky’s head swam for a moment as Pierce started to Weave a shadow around him as well.

With a shout, Bucky jumped back, trying to avoid the Weaving.

He landed on something soft and airy and almost fell backward before catching his balance. A quick glance told him that something was very, very wrong.

“Where are we?” Steve was muffled as he tried to struggle to his feet.

“Stay there,” Pierce growled with a shove and a kick to Steve’s head. 

Steve grunted, and Bucky saw red. He tried to walk across the airy ground to get between Pierce and Steve. It was like he was in a dream, desperate to run and unable to move across the space. 

The very air around them was heavy, like a thick fog had rolled in despite the hour of the day. It was also orange.

“Gods!” shouted Pierce, trying to plant his feet in the air and stumbling for a moment on the soft spring of the ground. He caught himself and stood tall. “You have heard the Horn. I have summoned you with the assistance of a human. Present yourselves, bound to me.”

Specks of light like oddly colored lightning flashed around them. No thunder cracked, and there was an eerie silence.

Bucky managed a step, working with soft, small footsteps instead of trying to push harder against the cloudy ground.

“The ritual… is unfulfilled.”   
  
A voice boomed out, reverberating around and through Bucky’s body and he shuddered, looking around for its source. 

“I have done as is told!” Pierce didn’t shrink back at the loud voice. “You cannot fight it!”

The lights flashed again as Steve writhed on the ground, trying to roll away and put space between him and Pierce. Pierce’s Weaving held him in place. 

Bucky tried for another step.

“No,” the voice declared. “It is incomplete.”

A hum like insects rose up, and Pierce shouted, pulling back on his Weaving. Suddenly able to move again, Steve rolled farther than he expected before trying to get on his footing in the clouds.

“Where are we?” Steve asked again. “What is this? What did you do?”

Pierce ignored him and shouted to the orange sky. “You cannot escape this.”

The colorful lightning flashed, blindingly bright, and the fog around them settled into something darker. Bucky looked down and immediately wished he hadn’t. They seemed to be standing on a rainbow, and as the fog dissipated, the air around them became faint and dark, as though they were standing in the sky.

“Bucky?” Steve was closer now, and Pierce was several far steps away. 

Another flash of lighting, and between Steve and Pierce were two figures, both tall. One was older, his gray hair thin and an eye covered with a patch. The other had golden hair to his shoulders, and a giant hammer at his side.

“It can’t be,” Bucky whispered, but there was no other explanation. “Odin and Thor.”

Pierce squared his shoulders as he faced off against the two gods, with no place to run. “I have done as the ritual demands. You are to do my bidding.” 

“Has he got no fear?” Steve whispered, rubbing at his head where Pierce had kicked him. 

“No sense, more like.” Bucky wanted to shrink back, to go back home and away from wherever they were now. 

“No,” Odin said flatly. “You have not fulfilled the requirements, and you would do well to remain silent.”

“Have you let Loki know?” Thor asked, sparing a glance backward at Steve and Bucky. 

“I should say he has,” came Loki’s voice as he strode up from nowhere on the strange rainbow that somehow, impossibly, held all their weight without bending or breaking. Loki stood in front of Thor, facing Pierce. Bucky couldn’t see his face, but he had a feeling Loki was grinning.

Maybe Bucky was having a vision. Maybe he’d gone unconscious when he tackled Pierce and this was all a feverish dream. 

“You’ve done well, my pets,” Loki said as he turned to Steve and Bucky. “Did I have my doubts? Well, of course. I was entrusting you to deliver this highly evasive creature to me. Thank you for not letting me down.”

“I thought I made it clear that you were not to interfere in the Midgardian’s lives.” Odin leveled a glare at Loki, but Loki shrugged.

“I did not interfere in the least, father. I just happened to be passing through when I came across a group that could use my guidance. Any resulting benefits were happenstance. Chance.”

Thor barked a laugh and covered it with half of a cough.

“Are we really going to argue semantics when I  _ finally _ have access to him, and in our realm?” Loki turned back to face Pierce, who, for the first time, was beginning to look concerned. 

“He’s been a blight on the planet for years,” Thor added, his tone that of a brother trying to help. “Pierce, that is. Not Loki.”

“Thank you, brother.” Loki’s eye roll was evident in his shoulders.

“Silence,” Odin said, holding up a hand. “You may have him.” He fixed his gaze on Pierce. From where Bucky stood, Odin’s grin was feral. “Be careful what you wish for.”

Pierce visibly paled, but he still stood his ground. “You cannot pass judgement without your fourth, and you know it.”

“Silence!” Odin repeated. “You dare to suggest you know our rituals better than I?”

“Well, he’s not  _ wrong _ ,” came a fourth voice, a female. Her hair was long and black like Loki’s.

Bucky stiffened at the sound, wishing for his Weaving that he knew would not be helpful in a fight against literal gods.

“Hela, you deign to grace us with your presence!” Thor smiled pleasantly, even though his voice suggested he felt otherwise. 

“My goddess,” Pierce said, going to one knee. “You are as radiant as I could have ever dreamed. I am your loyal servant.”

“At least someone here understands protocol,” Hela said, glancing at Steve and Bucky.

Bucky put a protective hand on Steve’s arm. Steve let him.

“Focus on our problem at hand!” Loki said. “He’s mine.”   
  
Hela tossed her hair back and considered. “He worked so hard to do it right. He would have gotten it if the elf hadn’t touched him at the same time and unbalanced the equation.”

“That has nothing to do with this.” Loki snarled. “Agree that he’s mine so that we can be done with this.”

“How about ninety percent yours?” Hela suggested as though she had all the time in the world. “And I’ll claim ten.”

Even on one knee, head bowed, it was clear Pierce had not anticipated any of this as a possible outcome. But he was at least staying quiet. At least he understood not to interrupt a conversation of gods.

“Excuse me,” came Steve’s voice, and Bucky smacked him on the arm, hissing for him to be quiet. Steve shook his head and kept talking. “What exactly do you mean by making him yours? I just… I don’t even know if we’re ever going to see our homes again, but I’d like to make sure that my friends can live without fear of him lurking about.”

Four gods turned and faced Steve, and Bucky was shocked to see Steve didn’t back down. 

“So many people have died in the flooding. So many more will die if we don’t get a chance to regroup and rebuild. And I just…” Steve paused for a moment, grabbing Bucky’s arm for support. “Maybe you’re going to kill us. But if it means my people won’t have to face Pierce any longer, then I will lay my life down for them.”

“Steve, just be quiet,” Bucky hissed. “Don’t give them any ideas!”

“My dear elf,” Loki said, stepping closer to Bucky. “You really don’t trust anyone, do you? Not your fellow magical spirits, not the humans, not us gods. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle you were able to bond with this human at all.” He took another step on the rainbow ground, until he was too close to Steve. “He is a lovely human.”

Steve stood his ground, but Bucky wanted to pull him back and away from Loki. He waited, hands trembling.

“What do you mean by bond?” Steve asked.

“I mean exactly what I say,” Loki said, not answering the question.

Thor sighed behind him.

“Loki, have you been marrying people without their knowledge at your altar again?” Odin asked, the weary reprimand of a father who knew the answer to his question.

“We’re married,” Steve repeated. “When I thought you were joking about him being my husband in the clearing, you were being serious.”

“Only in a very literal sense,” Loki said, waving his hand. “You took an oath together on my throne, I happened to be there to witness it, therefore you spoke an oath in front of a god and became bound as one.”

“I always expected a lot less blood at my wedding,” Bucky said flatly. He didn’t dare turn to Steve. Who knew what Steve thought about the whole thing and he didn’t want to find out, not just yet.

“You can’t just  _ bind _ people without their consent,” Steve growled.

Right. Steve would tell everyone what he thought about the whole thing. Steve would go home and Steve would marry whoever he wanted to marry. Which was fair. Bucky barely knew what to make of Loki telling him he was married to someone he hadn’t so much as kissed.

Bucky thought about kissing Steve, about holding him close and their heat mingling together.

Bucky was shocked to realized he was open to the idea. But Loki was talking again. 

“The bond wouldn’t have taken if it wasn’t spoken in truth.” Loki shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.” He nodded to Odin. “I just do my best to work them in my favor.”

“So back to Pierce, then,” Hela said. “I will give him to you if I can have him every fifth week.”

Loki glanced from Pierce to Steve. “I don’t really plan on having him available for anyone’s use by the fifth week.”

Hela considered again and frowned. “Such a waste. He has been my most loyal servant.”

“I’m sure there’ll be others,” Thor said, spitting out the words. “You have a certain charm about you.”

Hela smiled, beautiful and deadly. Bucky would happily go the rest of his life without seeing that again. 

“You’re right. I also have patience and time. He’s yours, Loki.” Hela inclined her head in the barest of an acknowledgement to her father and swept off to the shadows, disappearing from the rainbow bridge.

Odin nodded. “So it shall be.”

“Marvelous.” Loki’s grin was just as beautiful and deadly as his sister’s. Bucky had to be thankful that at least he seemed to be on their side.

Loki took Pierce, leaving Steve and Bucky alone with Thor and Odin. When no one spoke for a good minute, Bucky took a deep breath, unsure what to say, what to ask for. He wanted a lot of things; he wanted an explanation of where they were, a promise that Pierce would be taken care of. He wanted to go home, to his home.

He just didn’t know where home was anymore. Home was a destroyed palace, too big a reminder of those he had lost.

“Are we… can we go?” Steve asked, finally. His voice seemed smaller now, but still determined.

“Yes, yes,” Odin said, waving his hand as if to dismiss them.

“Don’t you think we ought to give them a reward?” Thor interjected. “It seems like the right thing to do.”

Bucky watched Thor and Odin warily, too tired to puzzle through what a reward from the gods would look like. 

“We just want to go home,” Steve said. He took Bucky’s hand in his. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Bucky tried to ignore the fact that Steve’s hand was warm and firm. 

“A reward,” Odin repeated. He tapped a finger on his chin. “Yes. They have helped us clean up a bit of a mess here, haven’t they?”

“Well, go on then. What would you like?” Thor asked. 

“To go home,” Steve said. He paused. “To have a  _ home _ to go to.” And then he looked at Bucky. “A home that we could have… together.”

Something tugged at the back of Bucky’s mind, like a dream that he’d had ages ago and only just remembered. A sense of belonging, like he had lived through a lifetime with Steve before. It was warm and comfortable and he had a flash of--remembrance?--or was it a dream?

“You have to ask for it,” Thor prompted.

Bucky decided to go for it. There was no point in beating around the bush with a god offering a favor. “Can you restore one of the ancient castles? One that humans and elves lived together in? So that we can bring all of the survivors together and begin again?”   
  
“So we can do it right this time,” Steve added quietly.

Bucky knew then that Steve understood. Even if he was going to live his life when they got back, he understood. Bucky savored the last few moments that they would hold hands.

“Next time, try asking for something more elaborate,” Odin said with a gruff grin and a wave of his hand. 

“Thanks,” Steve said, as though he’d been on speaking terms with gods all his life. “But I won’t plan on a next time.”

Thor laughed, a booming noise like thunder and Odin clapped his hands together.

“It is done.”   


“What about the others?” Bucky asked as the intensity of the moment with Pierce passed and he was able to think about Wanda and the others fighting against Pierce’s lackeys.

“Your friends had no trouble defending themselves and I trust you will be able to handle the others now that their leader is indisposed,” Odin said, half a smile threatening to dance on his lips. 

Thor grinned brightly. “Well, until next time, my friends!”

There was a clap of thunder, a flash of rainbow colored lightning, and the Bucky slammed into the ground. A second later, a thump next to him let him know Steve had landed just as gracefully.

He pushed up into a sitting position and looked around, trying to gather his bearings. The grass stretched out forever, but in the distance he thought he could see people and the brilliant twinkling of light that he’d learned to spot Natasha and Clint.

“Is that Lucky?” Steve asked, putting a hand to his forehead to shade against the sun.

“I think it is,” Bucky said. He took a deep breath, almost unable to pull his gaze from the grass. “Did you… did you want to talk about what Loki said about us? Before we go meet them?”

Steve glanced at the sky before meeting Bucky’s eyes. There was something that Bucky very much wanted to consider  _ longing _ in his hesitation, but he didn’t dare ascribe it to Steve. He waited for Steve to speak. 

“I think we’re going to need more than a few minutes, if that’s ok? We can discuss it a bit later?”

Bucky forced himself to swallow down a protest. “Of course. Let’s go see how soundly they beat Pierce’s henchmen.”

Steve smiled, his eyebrows relaxing into genuine relief as he threw his arms around Bucky in a hug. “Yeah. Let’s.”


	13. Chapter 13

#  13

 

“Well, this makes our palace look rather small, doesn’t it?” Wanda broke the silence as the small group stood at the top of the hill and stared into the distance at the sprawling castle grounds ahead of them.

Steve’s heart clenched as he looked beyond the stone buildings and noticed fields full of newly sprouted planting. “We can bring everyone. We can make this work.”

Beside him, Bucky was silent, and Steve wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he still wanted to go home, to his broken palance. He’d fix it and begin again, away from all of the humans.

After all, even as Steve took in the houses and shops ready to be occupied, his heart still twinged at the fact that it wasn’t yet  _ home _ .

But when he closed his eyes, he pictured his destroyed village along the river, the decimated buildings surrounded by deadly flooding. He looked at the streets ahead of them again. It could be home. 

Steve blew out a quiet breath. 

“I say let’s explore the grounds and take stock of what’s here for us, and then we can head back to gather everyone.” Sam spoke slowly, as though he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing, as if he had to touch it with his own hands first. 

Steve didn’t blame him. He still had a hard time believing what he had seen with Bucky on the rainbow bridge. Sometimes, he still wondered if perhaps Pierce had hit him too hard on the head. 

But they drew nearer to the castle grounds and none of the buildings wavered or disappeared. And there were finally, blessedly, trees visible on the western edge of the horizon, leading into a new forest. Steve considered that his ancestors might have explored every inch of that forest and now they’d have a chance to rediscover it, to walk on paths long erased by time. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips as he exchanged a glance with Sam.

A sudden warmth began to bloom in his chest as they walked into the city proper. They made their way through the opening in a low stone wall, which was more to direct the flow of people through the city than a defensive structure. As they explored, they found that the houses and shops that lined the dirt streets were simple but clean and nice.

One of the small houses had a tiny trundle bed made up with a linen sheet and a corncob doll tucked beneath the covers.

“Nat, you have got to come see this!” Clint flittered by, a streak of iridescent glare in his excitement. “There’s a tree for us.”

Out in the western courtyard, beautiful, shining rocks were piled in a perfect circle around a sapling oak tree. Lucky had settled in the soft shade of the young leaves and Natasha was inspecting the tree by the time Steve caught up with them.

The rocks glimmered green in the sunlight, reminding Steve of Loki. Yet again, he thought to his time speaking to the gods and wondered when, exactly, his life had become so different from what he had known as a boy. The way he had expected his life to go.

They saved the castle itself for last. 

“You’ve really never been in a castle in your life,” Bucky repeated as he studied Steve and the others, still sounding slightly unbelieving as they walked through the grand doors. 

“I’ve never seen a house with more than four rooms,” Scott added. “And that house would, uh, have fit in this room here.”

“How many people does it take to run a place like this?” Sam walked up to one of the walls, putting a hand on the stone and nodding at the sound construction. 

“There were a hundred elves on the Elder Counsel,” Wanda said slowly. She stared down the hall, as though she could picture it filled with her people. “And hundred more involved in the daily procedures.”

It was a sobering reminder to how fragile their remaining groups were, how few people were left. How hard they’d have to work to prevent their own extinction. Steve frowned, suddenly red hot with anger at what Pierce had done to the world in his quest for power.

“Loki will see to his appropriate punishment,” Bucky muttered next to Steve. He, too, stared down the great hall of the castle with a pained expression, his eyebrows drawn in sorrow. 

“I have no doubt.” Steve knew every single person he knew was alive could fit in this hall and there’d still be room to fit the same number twice more. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”

“The kitchens are as big as our old town,” Sharon reported back a few minutes later.

“There are enough bedrooms for everyone to have three of their own,” Scott added.

Pietro came in from another entrance to the hall. “We’ll have to figure out a way to fairly govern this city.” 

“We could set up our own council. Make sure everyone is invited to consider the details.” Wanda’s eyes sparkled as she took in the room again, this time clearly picturing a future of humans, elves, and fairies working together for the good of their world. It was almost naive, almost a product of being a youth.

Steve found himself nodding just the same. He looked over and saw Natasha and Bucky were nodding too.

 

*

 

Clint and Natasha went to sleep out in the fairy circle and the others picked rooms in the castle to rest before beginning their journey back. Steve found himself walking the dirt road down to the houses, unable to find rest in the large rooms of the castle. Bucky had disappeared after they’d eaten a simple dinner, and Steve didn’t know how to take that.

He’d been trying to work up the nerve to talk to Bucky about everything, now that they’d deferred the end of the world and his crush on Bucky was still hanging around like a stubborn marsh hog. But Bucky had slipped off to some room or another, and Steve wasn’t about to comb through the giant castle. It sort of seemed like a rather loud signal to let them start to disentangle from each other’s lives. 

The sun had just set beyond the treeline, and Steve walked with a small lantern, lit with a tiny piece of a candle. There was perhaps half an hour of light left, and Steve figured he’d settle down at whatever house he was in front of when the flame eventually blinked out.

Above him, the stars shone. He sighed and wondered if Peggy was looking up at the same stars right now. She couldn’t know what they had managed to do; everyone back at the camp must be worried and concerned, and here they were, sleeping on beds.

Steve sighed again, before stopping as he recognized the building he’d stopped at. It was a blacksmith shop, attached to an incredible forge. Immediately cursing himself for not having more candlelight to explore with, Steve went through the door, a sudden rush of energy as he found himself face to face with a remnant of his past. There, against the far wall, was a giant fireplace, currently clear of ashes.

Here were the billows, a giant set up that promised blazing hot fires. An anvil, set in the stone of the floor. A sword, an actual, honest to Odin  _ sword _ , not at all like the cheap imitation he had carried for the past weeks. Steve took the sword down from the wall, holding the beautifully weighted piece with an air of reverence. 

“So this is your natural habitat?” Bucky’s voice should have been a surprise, but it wasn’t as Steve turned around. Bucky stood in the doorway, his worn tunic and vest as vibrant in color as they had been when they first met.

“Not this forge exactly,” Steve said as he went back to the wall and hung up the sword. “But yes. This feels a little closer to home than that castle.”

Bucky took a step inside, curiosity coloring his features as he looked around. “We don’t really have a need for weapons in our palace. I’ve not seen this sort of equipment in person before. You can make swords like that?” He nodded to the work of art on the wall.

“I was an apprentice. Haven’t tried yet.” Steve met Bucky’s eyes. “You disappeared after dinner.”

Bucky nodded, ducking his head for a moment. When he looked back up, he set his shoulders. “I had to think on a lot of things for awhile.” 

He took another step into the room, and the determination in his stride brought a pleasant heat to Steve’s chest. He drew in a breath. “I’ve thought about a few things too. You look like you want to go first.”

Bucky covered half of the distance between them with his next step and he paused, just a foot outside of Steve’s reach. Steve kept himself from closing the gap, but only just.

“You’re not like the humans the Elders taught me to expect,” Bucky said, considering each word.

“Gee. Thanks.” Steve crossed his arms over his chest.

Bucky pinned him with a look that had Steve going warm in places just below his belt. “I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying it’s what I learned my entire life. And you changed it from the moment I saw you falling off of the cliff.”

Steve knew his brows were furrowed now. “Gee, thanks,” he repeated, but a smile tried to sneak through when Bucky glared at him, as though he expected Steve to find a second meaning in his words.

After a moment of hesitation like he had to stop himself from saying too much, Bucky added, “Your stubbornness helped see us through to taking down Pierce.”

“Well, I couldn’t have done it without you.” Steve bit his tongue, lest he ask if this meant Bucky was planning on staying around. He couldn’t help himself. “I suppose you might go with Wanda and Pietro back to the palace? Try to fix it up?”

Bucky hesitated again. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

Steve had expected the answer, but the words still lodged themselves painfully into his heart. “Yeah.”

But then Bucky took the step between them, slowly bringing a hand to Steve’s healed cheek, the cheek he had tended to the first time they met, and he looked right into Steve’s eyes. “But I think I might have a reason to stay.” His next breath was ever so slightly shaky, but his voice was firm. “May I kiss you?”

Steve met Bucky’s eyes, studied the soft glow in the pale candlelight of the smithy, and realized he didn’t know what to say. He’d thought about this moment, thought about Bucky being this close. Bucky’s hand was warm and gentle on his cheek, and Steve closed his eyes. He focused on Bucky’s skin against his and how his heart thumped against his chest.

He opened his eyes to see worry and fear reflected back at him. Something clicked, and he smiled, ready to fall off of this new cliff. “Please.”

Bucky leaned just a little bit closer and put his lips on Steve’s, and Steve lit up. One breath at a time, warmth rushed through his chest and down to his hips. Bucky didn’t take his hand off Steve’s face as they brought their mouths together again, and the warmth curled around his legs and wove up into his groin. 

Steve drew back even as he wrapped a hand around the small of Bucky’s back to let him know he didn’t want to stop. “Wow,” he whispered, and bit at his lip. Bucky’s taste lingered on his skin, something warm and inviting. 

“You want me to stop?” Bucky asked, his uncertain gaze wavering as he tried to meet Steve’s eyes. He took his hand from Steve’s cheek and Steve reached out to gently clasp it.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time.” Steve leaned in and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s cheek. He delighted in the way Bucky’s eyelashes fluttered at the contact. “Just need to know that you’re not…” Steve grimaced, searching for the words to describe their situation. “That you don’t feel obligated or something, just because Loki said we were ‘married’.”

Bucky shook his head and looked up at Steve from under those long, brown lashes. “I told you, I don’t follow Loki.” 

He reached over, and pulled Steve close. Heat rushed through Steve’s chest, spreading down in a beautiful burn of excitement. Bucky grinned as he continued, “I came to my conclusions independent of any meddling gods, thank you very much.”

Candlelight flickered across Bucky’s face, and Steve committed that moment to memory as he leaned in and brought their lips together again. Some of that nervous tension was gone, replaced by eager excitement. Every kiss danced on Steve’s skin like a soft electric pulse as they let the moment build.

Bucky wrapped a hand around Steve’s back, his fingers soft against the fabric of his tunic. They kissed again, and again, until Steve swore he saw stars dancing across the room. He kissed Bucky one more time, chasing that airy, light headed sensation and reveling in it. Every kiss brought him closer and he smiled at Bucky in the moments between their lips.

Bucky kissed back like he was drowning, his hand gripping Steve’s hips to keep him close. Steve laced his fingers through Bucky’s--he wasn’t going anywhere. They kissed until Steve’s lips were shiny with spit and still he leaned in again, Bucky meeting him as if this time there’d be another taste to explore and neither of them wanted to risk missing it. 

Steve couldn’t help but run his other hand through Bucky’s hair, delighted to find it was a soft and thick as it looked. He wound his fingers through it, a gentle tug of pressure.

Bucky moaned against Steve’s mouth, and Steve nearly bit his tongue. 

“Yeah, that’s ok?” Steve asked in between their ceaseless kisses, each one still lighting a spark on his skin. 

“Very ok,” Bucky murmured, the vibration of the words dancing on Steve’s lips. 

Steve managed a nod in response, his knees suddenly threatening to go out on him as he took in Bucky’s grin. He wrapped his fingers a little tighter in Bucky’s hair, tugged just a little harder.

Bucky mewled, pressing against him. He somehow managed to bring their chests closer together, their hips closer together, and the heat of his body wrapped around Steve. Steve had to stop to catch his breath lest he go up in flames. He put a hand on the hem of Bucky’s tunic and met Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky nodded.

The candlelight flickered, and a sudden sense of urgency flooded Steve, a desire to see Bucky before the light went out.

Bucky seemed to understand; he shrugged out of his cloak and let the silky soft fabric pool at his feet. Steve fumbled for a moment on Bucky’s belt, his fingers almost trembling at the thought of seeing Bucky naked. 

“You hated me,” Steve blurted out, rooted to the spot, his hands at Bucky’s hips.

Bucky flinched, guilt settling around his eyes. “I did. Unfairly.” He took Steve’s hands and pressed a kiss to the back of each. “Let me begin again?”

The light of the candle bounced against Steve’s skin and it seemed to shimmer where Bucky had kissed him. Steve smiled, a tentative turn of his lips. “You always said ‘hatred’, but your actions told me another story. Yes. Let’s start again, together.” 

He lifted Bucky’s tunic, helping him slip out of the colorful shirt and smiled. Bucky was beautifully built and carried himself with an air of confidence, even as he spoke. “Can’t quite compete with your level of ‘I make swords and armor all day long’, but I hope you like what you see.”

Steve was already reaching to run his hands up Bucky’s back to enjoy the heat of his skin. “I knew I would.” He meant to start reaching for Bucky’s pants but was distracted when Bucky leaned in to kiss him again.

Kissing Bucky while being able to touch his bare skin was a whole new delightful experience. Steve could have kissed him for hours as he ran his hands down Bucky’s sides, enjoyed the press of Bucky’s chest against his. Steve cupped a hand around Bucky’s chest, fingered the soft skin and firm muscle before sliding his fingers over and rubbing at the pink nipple.

“Mmm,” Bucky breathed against Steve’s lips. “Do it again.”

Steve did it again. And again, until Bucky was rocking his hips against Steve and whining, and then he slid his fingertips across Bucky’s chest to tease at the other nipple.

“Ah! Steve!” Bucky whimpered, squirming sweetly up against Steve. 

Steve flicked at Bucky’s nipple one more time before wrapping his hands around Bucky’s hips, sliding a thumb under the waistband of his pants. He let his fingers rest there and brought his focus back to Bucky’s soft, unyielding lips. 

“Let me.” Bucky’s fingers seemed to work fine as he unwound Steve’s belt and dropped it to the floor before pulling up Steve’s tunic over his head and tossing it next to the belt. “Damn, Steve. Even better when you’re not covered in blood.”

Steve laughed. Bucky pulled him close and when they slid back together, Steve’s laugh turned into a groan. Every single inch of skin that touched seemed to spark, sending tiny bits of lightning dancing between them like the flickering light bathing their bodies.

Steve was positive he was drunk on Bucky. He’d lost track of time, content to count kisses instead of minutes. He smiled against Bucky’s cheek as he slid a finger to the front of Bucky’s pants. “May I?”

Bucky nodded, shifting his feet to spread his legs just a little. Steve worked the pants down and when they hit the ground, Bucky stepped out of them, his cock springing up in the space between them.

Steve had a sudden urge to drop to his knees and offer worship in a way he hadn’t felt when he’d been standing in front of literal gods.

“You alright there, Steve?” Bucky asked, shifting his weight to one hip and smiling very innocently.

Steve managed to nod. He grabbed Bucky close and traced a finger down Bucky’s jaw, leaning in for another kiss. The moment their lips met, Steve knew everything was different, again. He shimmied out of his pants, desperate to bring more of his body in contact with Bucky.

Bucky didn’t complain, just let his hands wander down to Steve’s naked ass, cupping the muscle and squeezing. Steve squeaked even as he pressed up closer and Bucky grinned.

“Guess we should have considered going back to the castle for a real bed,” Bucky muttered in between their enthusiastic kisses.

“The cot’s an upgrade from the dirt, right?” Steve smiled and clasped Bucky’s hand, pulling back from him for one too cold moment in order to lead him towards the small beige bed.

They barely both fit, Bucky laughing as he squeezed onto the cot and Steve climbed on top of him. Their bodies slotted together like a sword and its sheath, their legs intertwined as they basked in the shared heat of their skin. 

The candle flickered and sputtered and went out, casting the room in darkness, but Steve was content to continue his exploration of Bucky’s body with or without light. He nuzzled at Bucky’s neck until he tilted his head back, the cot creaking beneath them. 

Steve nipped at the soft, exposed skin and sucked gently. Every little movement had Bucky rocking his hips up against Steve, his breathing a harsh pant. Steve didn’t know how it would end, just that he didn’t want it to, not yet. 

He shimmied down a little, until he could swipe his tongue across Bucky’s nipple while Bucky’s dick twitched its excitement against his stomach. Time seemed to fade into nothing as Steve focused on Bucky’s beautiful, responsive body. He teased at Bucky’s nipple with his tongue, reaching for the other with a hand, encouraged when Bucky started to cry out and whimper.

“You hated me,” Steve murmured against Bucky’s skin as he pressed kisses to Bucky’s stomach, “But all I’ve ever wanted is to touch you like this, from the moment I saw you.”

Bucky whined from underneath him, and his dick left a wet spot on Steve’s chest. “You’re such a liar,” he breathed out. “About to fall over dead when I met you. Not thinking about anything like this.”

Steve smiled against Bucky’s belly button, pleased to see the familiar feature on his elven lover. “You’ve got me there.” He dipped his tongue into the little divot and Bucky giggled. “Ticklish?”

Bucky grunted. “A little.”

Steve had to hang his legs off the end of the cot to scoot down any father, but Bucky got the picture, even in the dark, and spread his legs, giving Steve room between them. Steve settled in. The cot protested every movement, but Bucky reached down and grabbed Steve’s shoulders, encouraging him on.

That touch was all Steve needed, and he leaned in, taking the tip of Bucky’s cock into his mouth. He was greeted with velvety smooth, heated skin and he swallowed around the head eagerly, forgetting for a moment that he wanted to move slowly and explore. Bucky’s cock was warm and sweet in his mouth, twitching every time he licked along the underside of his shaft, tracing the veins he couldn’t see but could feel in the dark. 

Steve couldn’t help the moan the escaped at the realization that he had Bucky’s cock in his mouth, that Bucky  _ did _ want him, and seemed to be enjoying what he was doing. It went to Steve’s cock in a way that had him rocking his hips against the cot for a rush of stimulation.

“Ahh, Steve!” Bucky cried out, little gasps of sound that riled Steve up just as much as the twitching dick in his mouth. “Oh, please, Steve.”

Steve moaned again, unable to believe that it was really happening, that Bucky wasn’t going back to his palace, that Bucky wanted  _ him _ . The thought triggered a heavy, beautiful warmth in Steve’s groin. It swelled, threatening to overwhelm him, and he pulled back, panting.

Bucky whimpered, but didn’t tug on Steve’s shoulders. “Steve,” he breathed, his fingers comforting on Steve’s skin.

Steve took a few deep breaths, resting his hand on Bucky’s thigh to let him know he was ok. “I guess you could say it’s been awhile,” Steve admitted once he was sure his voice worked. “Was about to come at the thought of your cock in my mouth.”

Bucky whimpered again, said cock twitching against Steve’s cheek. “It’s not like I’d complain.” There was a half second of hesitation. “We’ve got more time than this, right?”

Steve didn’t take his hand off of Bucky’s thigh, rubbing firm circles on the muscle. “As long as you want, Bucky. I think I’m stuck on you as long as you’ll have me.” He smiled, even though he knew Bucky couldn’t see it in the dark. 

“Fucking hate to break it to you, Steve, but I think that’s what Loki intended when he married us off.”

Bucky’s smile was as clear as the sky, even if he didn’t see it. Mindful of the creaking cot, Steve worked his way back up, draping his body over Bucky’s and pressing kisses on Bucky’s jawline.

“Ok, husband,” Steve joked back, “Then how do you want our first time together to go?”

At the word ‘husband’, Bucky’s dick twitched against Steve’s thigh and they both laughed. 

“Ignore that,” Bucky said, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist to keep him close. “He’s excited. You could say ‘water’ and I’d probably start breathing heavy again.”

Steve nuzzled up against Bucky’s cheek again and marveled at how right it felt. “You can enjoy being my husband if you want. We can figure everything else out later.”

Bucky whimpered, soft and breathy, and Steve melted above him, threading his arms under Bucky’s shoulders, desperate to bring even more skin together. He worked his hips back and forth, earning a whine from Bucky. 

“I want you to take me,” Bucky whispered against Steve’s ear, the words vibrating into his skin. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

Steve couldn’t help the full body shudder. He cupped Bucky’s perfect jaw with both hands, pressing another kiss to soft, perfect lips. “I’d be honored.”

The cot croaked as Steve eased off of it, in search of some quenching oil to repurpose for Bucky’s comfort, finally managing to come across some without running into anything. He crept back to the bed, where Bucky had moved to the end of the cot and spread his legs again.

Steve reached out, running a hand on the curve of Bucky’s ass. He teased along the skin until he found exactly what he was looking for. Bucky pushed up against his wandering finger and gasped when Steve’s oiled finger slipped inside. 

“Is that ok?” Steve asked, keeping his finger in place.

Bucky rocked his hips against Steve’s hand. “Yes, very.”

“I want to be really careful, don’t want to hurt you.” Steve stroked Bucky’s hair with his other hand, gentle and comforting.

“You’ll have to try harder than you think to hurt me.” Bucky pressed up against Steve’s finger. “Haven’t we just spent the last eternity together?”

Steve slipped a second finger to join the first. “I suppose we have.”  

When Bucky groaned against the two fingers, Steve’s cock bounced at the sound. He sucked in a deep breath, willing himself to take just a moment longer. 

“Steve, please don’t make me beg you.”

Steve’s cock bounced again and Steve thought about grabbing Bucky’s hips in a bruising grasp, shoving his way in. He drew one more deep breath, cleared his mind, and helped Bucky shift his hips up to meet Steve’s cock.

Cockhead positioned against Bucky’s warm entrance, Steve paused one last time. “Ok, Bucky?”

“Gods. Yes!” Bucky rocked his hips, trying to draw Steve in.

Steve didn’t need any more encouragement. He pressed against the slight resistance as heat began to envelop his dick. “Oh!” Steve was pretty sure even his nipples had hardened from the overwhelming sensation. 

“Please, Steve. I need you.” Bucky’s voice almost cracked, reflecting how intense the moment was for Steve too.

“I’ve got you, Buck,” Steve murmured, rubbing circles on Bucky’s thigh, easing in slow inch by inch. “Gonna take care of you. Husband.”

Bucky groaned, his hips rocking up and Steve slipped in the last two inches all at once. Bucky’s breathy gasp ended on a shout. 

“You ok?” Steve stroked against Bucky’s thigh again, happy to have as much contact as he could have. 

“Mmmmhmm.” Bucky’s voice was a rumble that had warmth building in Steve’s groin and Steve clutching Bucky’s thighs just a little bit tighter for support.

Steve waited for the heat to recede just a touch before trying a tentative slide, pulling out just a few inches and pushing back in. Bucky reached out for his hips, trying to get Steve to move faster. Steve leaned forward, brushed a kiss on Bucky’s kiss-swollen lips, and tried again, slipping out slow and shoving back in.

Bucky tipped his head back and moaned, so Steve did it again, and again. The room was dark, but the electricity between them danced like lightning bugs, almost visible as it arced from hand to hand and chest to chest. 

The excitement buzzed on Steve’s skin, had his heart singing with joy even as his thighs began a pleasant ache of exertion. “You feel so good,” Steve managed to say, closing his eyes to try to center the overwhelming warmth that wrapped around his cock and spread up into his chest, down into his legs. 

Bucky hummed his reply and wrapped his legs around Steve’s waist, drawing him closer. Steve whimpered, unable to temper the perfect fire building in his groin. Bucky’s thighs pressed against his sides and he reached beneath his legs to fondle Steve’s balls, and Steve’s eyes snapped open as he recognized his orgasm five seconds too late.

He thrust into Bucky haphazardly, hot cum pulsing out with each erratic movement. Bucky gasped, but didn’t stop his firm touch on Steve’s balls, helping coax out Steve’s earth shattering release.

When it ended, Steve wasn’t sure if he was still standing, his knees a tad wobbly. Bucky had one hand on his hip and one hand working his own erection. “Oh! Let me--”

“Just stay inside me,” Bucky breathed out. “Love how you fill me up like this, love how full you make me feel--” His words cut off in starts and stops as he fisted his cock. “It’s so good, Steve, so good, please don’t-- please--” 

Bucky arched his back, his hips snapping up as he came. The strength of his orgasm pulsed around Steve’s softening cock, and Steve enjoyed those moment of almost too much before they, too, ended, leaving the two of them panting and entwined and grinning like they’d never done that before.

A moment later, Steve pulled out, grabbing a nearby rag to wipe down Bucky and then himself. He put the rag to the side, climbing into the protesting cot once again. 

“You’re really not going anywhere?” Steve asked, half asleep as they slotted their bodies together on the first bed they chose to share.

“Marsh hogs and the biggest flood of the world couldn’t take me away from you,” Bucky promised to Steve’s sleeping form. 

They fell asleep on the overworked cot. The bright, beautiful sun rose on their naked bodies, shining on the start of a new chapter for themselves and the entirety of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh! It's OVER! There's a lot to be said for this fic, but mostly, THANK YOU! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying this tale. Please, feel free to comment or leave kudos!
> 
> As always, you can find me on [tumblr](http://mystrana.tumblr.com/) and just, feel free to come chat or hang out! :)
> 
> Thank you again to KazablanKa for her wonderful art! You can find her on [tumblr](http://kazablanka96.tumblr.com/) too!


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